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A  CATALOGUE  OF 
ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


WOODCUTS 


Copyright ,  1917,  by  'The  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art 


LENDERS  OF  WOODCUTS 


J.  B.  Ayer 

Nos.  81-83,  87-89,  91,  92,  95-97,  99,  101,  102,  104-107,  109- 
114,  1 18,  119,  128-134,  136,  137,  141,  143,  144,  146-151,  153, 
155-160. 

J.  Pierpont  Morgan 

Nos.  1-48,  50-53,  55,  56,  58,  59,  61-64,  66-70,  73-78. 

George  A. Plimpton 
No.  49. 

Paul  J.  Sachs 
No.  145. 

The  following  numbers  are  from  the  collection  of  the  Museum 
Anonymous  Gift,  1917:  No.  79. 

Gift  of  Paul  J.  Sachs:  No.  65. 

Gift  of  Henry  Walters:  No.  154. 

Rogers  Fund,  1906;  No.  80. 

Rogers  Fund,  1917:  Nos.  54,  60,  84-86,  90,  93,  94,  98,  100,  103, 
108,115-117,  120-127,135,  138-140,  142,  152. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction  i 

Bibliography  27 

Cat A  LOGUE : 

PART  I.  WOODCUTS  IN  BOOKS  29 

PART  II.  WOODCUTS  NOT  IN  BOOKS  55 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

The  Flight  into  Egypt  32 

In  Torque madd s  Meditationes,  Rome,  1478 

Saint  Antonino  Writing  36 

In  Antonino' s  Cur  am  Ilhus  Habe,  Florence,  1493 

The  Agonit  in  the  Garden  37 

In  Savonarola' s  Sermone  della  Oratione,  Florence }  1492 

Savonarola  in  the  Pulpit  39 

In  Savonarola' s  Compendio  di  Revelatione,  Florence,  1496 

Savonarola  in  his  Cell  40 

In  Savonarola' s  Libro  della  Simplicita  della  Vita  Christiana , 
Florence,  1496 

PietX  41 

In  Savonarola' s  Traftato  della  Humilita ,  Florence,  about  1 500 

View  of  Venice  43 

In  Bergomensis,  Supplementum  Chronicarum,  Venice,  1492 

The  Triumph  of  Time  44 

In  Petrarch's  Triumphs,  Venice,  1508 

“Osee”  47 

In  the  Mallermi  Bible  of  1490,  Venice 

The  Fable  of  the  Dog  and  the  Stork  47 

In  Aesop's  Fables,  Venice ,  1508 

The  Sick  Man  49 

In  Ket ham's  Fasciculo  de  Medicina,  Venice,  1493 

In  Columna,  H ypnerotomachia  Poliphili  50 

Venice,  Aldus,  1499 

The  Fable  of  the  Oak  and  the  Reed  52 

In  Verdizotti's  Cento  Favole  Morali,  Venice,  1577 

An  Equestrian  Battle  53 

In  Brusantino ,  Angelica  Inamorata,  1553 

The  Psalms 

In  the  Mallermi  Bible  of  1490,  Venice 


54 


INTRODUCTION 

AND 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


. 


INTRODUCTION 


IF  one  were  to  be  asked  which  of  all  the  fine  arts 
had  entered  most  intimately  into  the  life  of  the  last 
four  centuries,  had  more  than  any  other  imported 
ideas  and  given  pleasure,  it  would  seem  as  though  there 
could  be  but  one  answer,  for  until  relatively  few  years 
ago  the  woodcut  was  the  only  form  of  conscious  art 
which  any  but  the  most  favorably  situated  of  the  people 
ever  possessed.  It  was  cheaply  and  copiously  to  be  pro¬ 
duced,  and,  at  once  its  glory  and  its  undoing,  could 
be  and  was  so  easily  printed  in  conjunction  with  type 
that  it  became  the  normal  form  of  book  illustration.  The 
uses  to  which  it  was  put  in  books  were  frequently  of  the 
most  menial,  as  it  made  possible  the  visualization  of 
almost  everything  about  which  a  man  could  write,  and 
in  consequence  it  has  had  the  great  good  fortune,  which 
otherwise  has  fallen  only  to  the  similarly  vulgar  art  of 
words,  to  have  been  forgotten  as  an  “art”  and  to  have 
passed  into  the  idiom,  the  very  warp,  of  our  mental 
operations. 

Unlessit  happens  that ourattentionisespecially  called 
to  it,  we  are  apt  to  see  a  woodcut  as  we,  also  unfor¬ 
tunately,  see  type,  in  fa£t  with  and  as  a  kind  of  type,  a 
printed  symbol  from  which,  while  ignoring  it,  we  draw 
the  greater  part  of  our  visual  knowledge  and  ideals.  Its 
very  usefulness  has  caused  it  to  be  familiar,  and  its  fa¬ 
miliarity  has  resulted  in  its  not  being  seen  as  a  thing  in 
itself.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  this  the  art  has  on  the  roll  of 
its  practitioners  many  of  the  greatest  names  of  modern 
times,  for  such  different  men  as  Diirer  and  Titian,  Blake 
and  Daumier,  to  say  nothing  of  countless  others,  have 
used  it  as  a  medium  for  the  expression  of  their  ideas. 
Just  as  in  technique  it  is  theoretically  the  easiest  of  the 
graphic  arts,  so  is  it  the  most  difficult,  its  extreme  sim- 


4 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


plicity  making  demands  upon  the  designer  which  cannot 
be  evaded  or  glossed  over  as  they  can  in  etching  and 
lithography;  for  the  process  admits  neither  of  that  ma¬ 
nipulation  in  printing  whereby  a  pleasant  surface  can  be 
adventitiously  bestowed  upon  an  unworthy  thing,  nor 
yet  of  that  mere  minuteness  and  slickness  of  workman¬ 
ship  which  so  frequently  passes  for  delicacy. 

Its  nearest  analogue  is  prose  writing,  than  which 
nothing  may  be  rarer  or  more  beautiful,  although  noth¬ 
ing  in  fa£I  is  commoner  or,  usually,  less  distinguished. 
Just  as  the  beauty  of  prose  is  little  dependent  upon  the 
skill  or  whimsy  of  its  printer,  so  is  the  woodcut  freest  of 
all  forms  of  graphic  art  from  “rarity,”  “state,”  “condi¬ 
tion,”  and  “quality,” those  four  accidental  things  which 
so  frequently  assume  more  importance  than  does  artis¬ 
tic  merit  in  the  appreciation  of  other  kinds  of  prints. 
And,  finally,  like  prose  it  has  neither  greatest  master  nor 
proxime  accessit ,  so  that  to  the  amateur  its  field  is  open 
and  unhindered  by  barrier  of  eulogy  or  reminiscence, 
and  there  are  no  scarecrows  of  printed  opinion  to  in¬ 
timidate  free  exercise  of  choice. 

The  visitor  to  the  galleries  must  remember  two  things 
in  looking  at  the  work  exhibited,  else  he  will  be  likely 
to  carry  away  with  him  a  false  impression  of  what  it 
really  is.  The  first  of  these  is  that,  so  far  as  the  greater 
part  of  that  work  is  concerned,  he  is  looking  with  twen¬ 
tieth-century  eyes  at  the  handiwork  of  the  contempo¬ 
raries  of  Columbus,  and  that  their  thoughts  on  many 
subjects,  their  points  of  view,  and  especially  their  con¬ 
ventions  of  expression  are  not  as  his;  for  much  as  we 
know  that  they  did  not,  they  knew  much  that  we  have 
unlearned,  and  doubtless,  also,  they  knew  much  that  we 
have  forgotten.  The  other  is  the  comparatively  short  pre¬ 
vious  history  of  the  woodcut,  for,  unlike  painting  and 


WOODCUTS 


5 


sculpture,  the  pi£torial  woodcut  was  still  somewhat  of 
a  novelty  at  the  time  the  earliest  of  the  prints  shown 
was  made. 

The  pictorial  woodcut  seems  to  be  an  outgrowth  of 
the  use  of  wooden  blocks  for  printing  designs  upon 
cloth,  an  art  or  industry  the  history  of  which  is  lost  in 
the  antiquity  of  the  East.*  Cloth,  especially  the  earlier 
coarser  weaves,  was  not  a  sympathetic  medium  for  the 
printing  of  pi&ures,  a  handicraft  which  therefore,  aside 
from  isolated  experiments,  could  not  have  come  in  until 
afterpaperhad  become  an  ordinary  article  of  commerce,  f 
for  various  historical  reasons  it  seems  safe  to  consider 
that  at  least  until  about  1400  the  production  of  wood- 
cuts  was  confined  to  very  few  places  and  was  small  in 
volume.*  The  earliest  date  that  can  with  assurance  be 
assigned  to  any  pictorial  woodcut  on  paper  now  pre¬ 
served  appears  to  be  1410,  as  that  is  the  date  of  a  manu¬ 
script  found  in  the  monastery  of  Saint  Zeno  at  Reichen- 

*  See  R.  Forrer,  Die  Kunst  des  Zeugdrucks,  Strassburg,  1898,  in 
which  Eastern  printed  stuffs,  attributed  to  the  VI  and  VII  cen¬ 
turies,  are  reproduced. 

■f  In  an  old  Chinese  book  it  is  stated  that  Tsai  Lun,  an  imperial 
privy  councilor,  made  paper  from  rags  in  105  a.d.  In  751  a.d.  the 
governor  of  Samarcand,  Zijad  ibn  Salih,  defeated  a  Chinese  army, 
taking  captive  some  paper-makers  who  introduced  their  art  into 
Samarcand,  which  rapidly  developed  a  great  paper  trade.  Ja’far,  the 
grand  vizier  of  Haroun-al-Rashid,  introduced  the  use  of  paper  into 
the  chancellery  of  the  Khalifate  at  Bagdad.  The  manufa&ure  spread 
to  Arabia,  Syria,  and  Tripoli,  and  soon  became  common  in  Egypt, 
where  a  traveler  (Nasiri  IChosran,  1035—42)  was  astonished  to  see 
the  Cairene  grocers  wrap  up  their  wares  in  paper  before  delivering 
them  to  their  customers.  The  Moors  carried  the  art  with  them  to 
Spain,  which  as  early  as  1154  exported  paper  to  Africa.  The  first 

Emill  in  a  Christian  country  appears  to  have  been  that  at  Fa- 
3  in  Italy,  where  mills  were  working  in  1276,  although  paper, 
presumably  imported,  had  been  in  use  in  Italy  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury  previously.  (See  P.  Henderson  Aitken,  in  ’Transactions  of  the 
Bibliographical  Society,  London,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  200  ct  seq.) 

t  See  Campbell  Dodgson,  Catalogue  of  Early  German  .  .  .  Woodcuts 
...  in  the  British  Museum,  London,  1903,  vol.  i,  p.  5. 


6 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


hall  in  the  Tyrol  in  which  were  inserted  two  cuts,  re¬ 
spectively  of  Saint  Dorothy  and  Saint  Sebastian,  now 
in  the  collection  at  Munich.  These  and  a  small  num¬ 
ber  of  similar  prints,  which  are  among  the  finest  of  the 
very  early  woodcuts,  are  especially  interesting  because 
some  specialists  have  discerned  in  them  such  strong 
Italianate  forms,  that,  if  not  Italian  work,  they  would 
seem  to  have  been  made  from  Italian  models.*  The 
earliest  date  to  appear  on  a  primitive  woodcut  is  1418, 
though  whether  this  date,  which  is  found  on  a  Madonna 
in  the  Brussels  library,  is  that  of  the  making  of  the  print 
or  merely  of  some  occurrence  which  it  celebrates  can¬ 
not  be  said.*]'  From  Italian  archives  it  appears  that  in 
1430  a  certain  Antonio  di  Giovanni  di  Ser  Francesco 
made  a  declaration  before  the  Florentine  tax  authorities, 
in  which  he  stated  that  he  owned  many  wood-blocks  for 
the  printing  of  playing-cards  and  pictures  of  saints, | 
and  in  1441  the  Venetian  Senate,  on  the  petition  of  the 
local  card-makers,  passed  an  ordinance  forbidding  the 
sale  of  pictures,  of  printed  figures,  and  of  cards  coming 

*  See  Nos.  1395  and  1677  in  W.  L.  Schreiber,  Manuel  de  /’ Ama¬ 
teur  de  la  Gravure  sur  Bois  et  sur  Metal ,  Berlin  (Leipsic),  1891  — 
1 91 1,  and  page  46  of  Part  III  of  the  Prince  of  Essling’s  Les  Livres 
a  Figures  Venitiens  de  la  fin  du  XVs  Siecle  et  du  Commencement  du 
XVl‘,  Paris,  1907-14. 

f  For  the  latest  information  about  this  notorious  print  (Schreiber, 
1 160)  see  Dodgson  in  his  introdu&ion  to  Woodcuts  of  the  Fifteenth 
Century  in  the  'John  Rylands  Library ,  Manchester,  1915. 

J  See  Paul  Kristeller,  Early  Florentine  Woodcuts,  London,  1897, 
p.  ii.  “The  anecdote  quoted  by  Schreiber  about  St.  Bernardino 
of  Siena,  though  its  authenticity  may  not  be  above  suspicion,  is  of 
interest  as  suggesting  that  the  professional  manufa6ture  of  playing- 
cards  preceded  the  professional  manufacture  of  religious  cuts.  The 
saint  is  said  to  have  preached  on  May  5,  1423,  against  card-playing 
with  such  effeCt  that  his  hearers  burnt  their  cards  and  renounced 
playing.  Then  a  card-maker  asked  the  preacher,  ‘How shall  I  earn 
my  livelihood  henceforth  ?’  The  saint  took  a  piece  of  paper,  drew 
the  sacred  monogram  upon  it,  and  said,  ‘Make  pictures  like  this.’  ” 
(Dodgson,  Catalogue,  p.  6,  note  3.) 


WOODCUTS 


7 


from  abroad,  under  penalty  of  fines  and  seizure.**]*  But 
in  spite  of  such  documentary  evidence,  Italian  woodcuts 
made  before  the  introduction  of  printing  are  so  rare, and 
so  little  is  known  about  them,  that  it  must  suffice  to  say 
that  in  the  Bibliotheca  Classense  in  Ravenna,  the  Mu¬ 
seum  at  Prato,  and  the  Royal  Print  Cabinet  at  Berlin  there 
is  a  small  number  of  such  prints,  for,  speculation  apart, 
nothing  is  known  about  them  —  date,  place,  or  makers. 

The  wood-block  from  which  a  design  is  printed, 
whether  it  be  the  simplest  typographical  ornament  or 
the  most  highly  developed  and  detailed  picture,  is  essen¬ 
tially  only  a  piece  of  wooden  type,  the  making  of  which, 
the  design  being  given,  is  one  of  the  simplest  of  mechan¬ 
ical  problems,  depending  far  more  on  the  cutter’s  man¬ 
ual  facility  than  on  any  great  technical  knowledge.  The 
Italian  Renaissance  draughtsman  drew  his  design  upon 
the  block,  and  the  cutter  (in  many  cases  probably  the 
same  person)  with  his  knife  and  gouge  cut  away  that 
partof  thesurfaceof  the  block  left  white  by  the  designer, 
so  that  the  woodcut  line  as  actually  made  was  not  one 
line  but  two  lines  inclosing  a  black  space.  The  sparing 
use  of  cross-hatching  in  the  early  cuts,  and  in  fact  in 
much  of  the  more  beautiful  work  produced  in  the  great 
periods  of  the  art,  is  due  incidentally  to  this  fail,  for 
where  with  the  etching  needle  or  pen  it  takes  but  six 
strokes  to  make  three  parallel  lines  cross  three  others 
at  right  angles,  the  woodcutter,  to  disengage  the  wood 
from  between  the  lines  of  such  a  pattern,  has  to  make 
about  sixty  separate  strokes  with  his  knife.  Rarely  has 
an  important  draughtsman,  or  even  a  busy  one,  found 

*  See  J.  D.  Passavant,  Le  Peintre  Graveur,  Leipsic,  1S60-64,  vol.  i, 
p.  11. 

f  Dr.  Kristeller,  in  his  Kupferstich  und  Holzsc/initt  in  evier  Jahr- 
hunderten  (Berlin,  1905,  p.  21),  adduces  fails  from  which  he  infers 
that  a  certain  F ederigo  di  Germania,  who  w  as  arrested  at  Bologna  in 
1395  for  coining  false  money,  may  have  known  aboutwoodcutting. 


8 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 

time  to  cut  his  own  designs  upon  the  block,  that  tedi¬ 
ous  job  being  done  by  other  persons,  whose  part  in  the 
completed  work  may  fittingly  be  compared  to  that  per¬ 
formed  by  the  acid  in  etching.* 

Until  after  books  began  to  be  printed  from  type  there 
were  extremely  few  pidfonal  woodcuts  dealing  with  other 
than  religious  subje&s,  as  the  first  great  incentive  for 
making  such  cuts  apparently  came  from  the  desire  to 
illustrate  the  histories,  novels,  and  other  books  produced 
by  the  printers.  The  first  book  printed  from  type  appears 
to  have  been  made  sometime  about  1450,  although  the 
questions  of  precedence  in  invention  and  exadf  date  are 
shrouded  in  a  mystery  which  much  acrimonious  con¬ 
troversy  has  deepened  rather  than  clarified;')'  but  there 

*  In  the  preface  to  Cesare  Cesariano’s  Italian  translation  of  Vitru¬ 
vius,  printed  at  Como  in  1521,  it  is  said,  “Non  senza  maxima  im- 
pensa  per  mold  excellent  pi6tori  io  ho  fa&o  designare  e  per  non 
mediocri  incisori  ho  similmente  fa&o  intagliare  le  affigurationi  al 
circino  perlincate  et  composte.”  (Essling,  Litres  a  Figures ,  Part  III, 
p.  91,  note.)  The  unimportance  of  the  woodcutter  as  distinft  from 
the  designer  of  the  woodcuts  was  so  great  that  Dr.  Kristeller,  in 
his  Early  Florentine  IVoodcuts,  has  cited  the  name  of  none  prior  to 
1500,  while  the  industry  of  the  Prince  of  Essling  brought  forth  the 
name  of  only  one  in  Venice  prior  to  that  date,  and  of  a  possible  four¬ 
teen  or  fifteen  during  the  much  longer  period  covered  by  his  re¬ 
searches.  Even  in  Germany,  where  the  history  of  the  woodcut  has 
been  most  assiduously  worked  over,  there  is  only  a  handful  of  names 
in  the  two  great  schools  of  Nuremberg  and  Augsburg  prior  to  1525, 
and  a  very  large  portion  of  them  are  known  only  because  they  ap¬ 
pear  on  the  backs  of  original  blocks  preserved  in  the  Imperial  Aus¬ 
trian  cohesions.  (See  Dodgson,  op.  cit.}  vol.  ii,  pp.  204  et  seq.) 

f  On  the  continent  of  Europe  the  general  opinion  now  seems  to  be 
that  the  first  printing  with  types  was  done  by  John  Gutenberg  in 
the  city  of  Mayence  shortly  prior  to  1450.  The  eleventh  edition  of 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  in  its  article  on  Typography,  prefers 
the  claims  of  Laurence  Coster  of  Haarlem,  while  in  France  there 
are  people  who  seriously  advance  the  theory  that  a  certain  Proco¬ 
pius  Waldfoghel,  of  Bohemia,  printed  with  types  at  Avignon  as 
early  as  1444.  Numerous  other  claimants  have  been  proposed  for 
the  honor,  the  conflift  of  opinion  appearing  at  least  as  early  as  1483, 
when  Jacopo  Foresti  said  in  his  SupplementumChronicarum,u  ars  im- 
pnmendi  libros  .  .  .  quam  alii  repertam  asseverant  a  Guttenbergo, 


WOODCUTS 


9 


seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  first  book  printed  in  Italy 
from  movable  type  was  made  at  Subiaco,  just  out  of 
Rome, in  i465bytwo  traveling  Germans  named  Sweyn- 
heim  and  Pannartz.  In  1467, at  Rome, six  or  seven  years 
after  the  appearance  at  Bamberg  of  Boner’s  Edelstein ,* 
which  was  the  first  book  to  contain  woodcut  illustra¬ 
tions,  Ulrich  Hahn  of  Vienna  printed  an  edition  of  the 
Meditation.es  of  Cardinal  Torquemada,  illustrated  with 
thirty-odd  pictures,  which  possibly  may  have  been  cut 
on  metal  rather  than  on  wood.-]*  After  the  appearance 

alii  a  quodam  alio  nomine  F austo,  alii  a  Nicolao  Jenson  praedicant.” 
(Brown,  The  Venetian  Printing  Press ,  London,  1891,  p.  4.)  There 
is  a  vast  body  of  writings  on  the  subjedf,  to  which  an  inordinate 
amount  of  time,  research,  and  spinning  of  theories,  to  say  nothing 
of  some  “  bettering  ”  of  documents,  has  been  devoted.  The  first  book 
to  bear  a  date  seems  to  have  been  a  Psalter  issued  by  the  printers 
Fust  and  Schoefferat  Mayence,  August  14, 1457, although  aprinted 
indulgence  of  Pope  Nicholas  V  is  dated  1454. 

*  Reproduced  in  facsimile  by  the  Graphische  Gesellschaft  of  Ber¬ 
lin  in  1909. 

f  See  No.  7  in  this  exhibition  for  impressions  from  these  same  blocks. 
In  the  Berlin  Print  Cabinet  there  is  a  seemingly  unique  copy  of  an 
undated  Venetian  block-book  (i.e.  a  book  in  which  both  pictures 
and  text  are  cut  upon  wood-blocks),  reproduced  by  Essling  (op.  cit., 
No.  1),  which  is  presumed  to  have  been  made  about  the  middle  of 
the  XV  century.  (See  Kristeller,  Kupferstich  und  Holzschnitt,  1905, 
p.  127,  and  his  article  at  p.  132  of  vol.  22  of  the  Jahrbuch  der  K. 
Preussischen  Kunstsammlungen.)  Some  almost  contemporary  copies 
of  it  have  recently  been  discovered  pasted  on  an  altarpiece  at  Nu¬ 
remberg  (Kristeller,  Eine  Folge  veneziamsche  Holzschnitte  aus  dem 
XV  Jahrhuudert ,  Berlin,  1909).  The  blocks  from  which  it  was 
printed  were  again  used  by  Jerome  de  Sanftis,  the  only  Venetian 
woodcutter  prior  to  1 500  whose  name  is  known  to  us,  in  his  edition 
of  Saint  Bonaventure’s  Devote  Meditazione  (Essling,  No.  404)  of 
1487.  There  seem  to  have  been  preserved  but  three  or  four  Italian 
block-books  (see  Schreiber,  Darf  der  Holzscknitt  a/s  Vorlaufer  der 
Buchdruckcrkunst  betrachtet  vuerden,  Leipzig,  1895,  PP-  5  and  6,  and 
Essling,  op.  cit..  No.  1),  one  of  which  is  No.  8  in  this  exhibition.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  Herr  Schreiber  (op.  cit.)  has  produced  good 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  block-books,  which  in  all  the  older 
books  of  reference  are  referred  to  as  the  predecessors  of  typography, 
in  reality  made  their  first  appearance  after  books  were  being  printed 
from  type.  Mr.  Dodgson  (op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  16)  is  of  the  same  opin¬ 
ion  as  Herr  Schreiber. 


10 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


of  the  Meditation.es ,  woodcut  books  made  their  appear¬ 
ance  rapidly  all  over  Italy,  closely  following  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  printing  in  the  various  cities,  the  first  such 
books  coming  out  in  the  following  years:  Venice,  1471 ; 
Verona,  1472;  Milan,  first  book  1479,  second  book 
1492;  Naples,  first  book  1480,  second  book  1485; 
Florence,  1490;*  Ferrara,  1493. 

Both  in  Germany  and  in  Italy,  after  the  third  quarter 
of  the  fifteenth  century  the  preponderating  influence  of 
book  illustration  is  to  be  noticed  all  through  the  wood- 
cut  work,  so  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  chiaro¬ 
scuros,  it  may  almost  be  taken  as  a  rule  of  thumb  that 
any  woodcut,  whatever  its  purpose,  would  nevertheless 
be  cast  in  the  form  originally  worked  out  with  reference 
to  the  printed  book.  It  is  to  this  as  much  as  anything 
that  the  great  fundamental  differences  between  the  two 
great  schools  can  probably  be  traced,  as  the  type  of  wood- 
cut  used  in  illustration  naturally  depended  most  closely 
upon  the  tastes  and  habits  of  the  book-buying  publics. 
In  Germany  the  woodcut  book  soon  met  with  the  favor 
of  the  wealthier  classes,  and  the  form  which  the  cuts 
took  was  naturally  based  in  large  measure  upon  the 
calligraphic  and  miniature  traditions  with  which  they 
were  familiar.  As  a  result  the  woodcut  in  Germany 
tended  from  the  first  to  become  a  facsimile  of  that  flow¬ 
ing,  almost  handwriting  line  which  until  well  on  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  remained  the  normal  form  of 
German  pen  draughtsmanship.  In  Italy,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  richer  people  for  a  long  time  seem  to  have  had 
little  desire  for  woodcut  decorations  in  their  books,  as 
with  few  exceptions  the  most  luxuriously  printed  books 

*  The  earliest  illustrated  Florentine  book  referred  to  in  Dr.  Kris- 
teller’s  Early  Florentine  Woodcuts  is  dated  1 490,  but  there  is  abun¬ 
dant  evidence  that  many  woodcut  books  must  have  been  printed 
there  prior  to  that  time,  many  of  the  blocks  in  books  of  1490  show¬ 
ing  signs  of  much  wear. 


WOODCUTS 


II 


have  no  woodcut  illustrations.  Even  printed  floriated  ini¬ 
tials  and  decorative  side  and  head-bands  seem  not  to 
have  met  with  whole-hearted  approval  from  those  exi¬ 
gent  bibliophiles,  as  many  of  the  wonderfully  printed 
early  books  have  come  down  to  us  with  empty  spaces 
where  the  initials  should  be,  the  occasional  illuminated 
copy  showing  that  these  places  were  meant  to  be  filled 
in  by  the  miniaturist.*' The  great  public,  however,  was 

*  Italian  miniaturists  seem  to  have  used  outline  wood-blocks  much 
as  we  now  might  use  rubber  stamps,  as  a  means  of  repeating  on 
the  margins  of  pages  a  given  design,  which,  in  many  cases,  was 
later  to  be  covered  over  with  color.  Thus  the  celebrated  border  in 
the  Subiaco  Lactantius  of  [465,  which  Dr.  Lippmann  ( History  of 
Wood-Engraving  in  Italy,  London,  1888,  p.  9)  noticed  as  the  first 
Italian  book  to  contain  a  woodcut,  has  been  shown  to  have  been 
placed  upon  the  page  in  this  manner  after  the  book  was  printed 
(Pollard,  Italian  Book  Illustration,  London,  1893^.9).  Nos.  1,  2,  and 
4  in  this  exhibition  contain  decorative  bands  subsequently  inserted 
in  this  way.  The  Prince  of  Essling  reproduces  a  number  of  such 
borders,  both  plain  and  colored,  from  very  early  Venetian  books. 
The  significant  thing  about  this  species  of  borders  is  that  they  were 
not  printed  at  the  same  time  as  the  text,  and  that  seemingly  the 
printers  had  nothing  to  do  with  them.  (See  generally  Essling,  Livres 
a  Figures ,  Part  III,  pp.  49  et  seq.,  and  Kristeller  in  Archivio  storico 
dell'  Arte,  anno  V,  p.  95.)  The  De  re  militari  of  Valturius,  printed 
at  Verona  in  1472  (No.  5  in  this  exhibition),  illustrates  a  stage 
half-way  between  illustration  by  hand  and  the  printing  of  wood¬ 
blocks  at  the  same  time  as  the  letter-press,  as  its  woodcuts  were  im¬ 
pressed  upon  blank  spaces  left  in  the  text  by  the  printer  for  the  pur¬ 
pose.  The  first  Italian  borders  printed  with  the  text  were  those  of 
Ratdolt’s  firm  (see  Nos.  47,  48,  and  49  in  this  exhibition),  of  which 
six  are  composed  of  white  lines  on  black  grounds  (in  contrast  to  the 
use  of  black  line  borders  by  the  German  printers  and  the  Italian 
miniaturists),  and  must  therefore,  as  Dr.  Kristeller  has  pointed  out 
( Kupferstich  und  Holzsc/initt,  1905,  p.  129),  have  been  intended  as 
substitutes  for,  rather  than  as  aids  to,  the  work  of  the  illuminator. 
This  distinction  seems  also  to  be  true  of  the  pictorial  illustrations  ; 
for  in  Italian  books  it  is  rather  unusual  to  find  the  woodcuts  painted 
over,  whereas  in  German  books  colored  cuts  are  quite  common, 
such  works  as  the  Nuremberg  Chronicle  (1493),  for  instance,  having 
been  issued  by  the  publishers  both  plain  and  colored,  much  as  cer¬ 
tain  kinds  of  English  books  were  a  century  ago,  while  in  the  Schatz- 
behalter  (Nuremberg,  1491)  the  author  quite  simply  requests  that 
the  cow  in  a  certain  cut  be  colored  red,  if  the  pidure  is  painted, 
as  she  is  intended  to  be  the  red  heifer  of  Chapter  XIX  of  the  Book 


12 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


not  subject  to  these  qualms  and  aspirations  of  the  finer 
bibliophilic  conscience,  and  they  frankly  liked  the  little 
pictures  which  the  printers  soon  found  lent  attraction  to 
their  wares.  Not  having  been  accustomed  to  any  kind  of 
books,  they  had  no  tradition  in  such  matters  as  book  il¬ 
lustration  and  decoration,  and  the  publishers  and  printers 
did  not  find  it  necessary  to  go  to  well-recognized  artists 
for  the  designs  with  which  they  embellished  the  popular 
books  they  put  forth.  The  printer  or  publisher,  being 
more  important  than  the  artist, was  enabled  to  keepsuch 
a  close  hand  upon  the  blocks  done  for  him  that  in  gen¬ 
eral  they  fitted  far  more  closely  the  format  and  the  type 
of  his  pages  than  the  German  work  did.*  Moreover,  the 

of  Numbers.  Possibly  the  only  Italian  book  issued  in  this  way  was 
the  1493  edition  of  the  Italian  translation  of  Ketham’s  Fasciculus 
Medicinae  (No.  63  in  this  exhibition),  the  color  in  which,  according 
to  the  bibliographies,  was  printed  from  blocks,  but  which  I  am 
advised  by  Rudolph  Ruzicka,  a  wood-engraver  and  color  printer 
of  large  experience,  who  has  examined  the  book  with  great  care, 
was  undoubtedly  put  on  with  brush  and  stencil. 

*  The  Venetian  and  Florentine  books  of  the  period  prior  to  1500 
are  in  many  cases  rendered  peculiarly  interesting  by  the  notable 
way  in  which  their  pages,  type  and  woodcuts,  were  put  together. 
The  printer's  seem  to  have  felt  that  the  two  should  be  in  harmony 
with  each  other,  and  so  to  have  placed  the  blocks  that  they  formed 
an  integral  part  of  the  design  of  the  type  pages.  The  Venetian 
printers  of  this  period  in  many  aspedds  of  their  work  are  especially 
noteworthy,  for  they  seem  to  have  determined  generally  the  course 
which  the  best  bookmaking  of  succeeding  centuries  was  to  travel. 
Although  not  the  inventors  of  the  roman  type  face,  as  distinct  from 
black  letter,  they  developed  it  to  such  an  extent  that  it  became 
the  normal  form  of  type  in  all  non-German  countries,  the  types 
of  Nicolas  Jenson,  for  instance,  still  serving  as  the  dire£t  basis  of  a 
number  of  our  more  beautiful  modern  type  faces.  Erhard  Ratdolt 
seems  to  have  been  the  first  printer  to  print  in  gold,  or  to  print  a 
pifture  in  more  than  one  color,  and  in  addition  to  printing  the  first 
book  with  a  title-page  which  gave  the  name  of  the  book,  the  date, 
place,  and  name  of  the  printer  (No.  47  in  this  exhibition),  he  also 
produced  the  first  geometry  with  printed  diagrams  (No.  49  in  this 
exhibition).  The  italic  type  face  was  designed  by  Aldus  Manutius 
after  the  handwriting  of  Petrarch,  and  the  matrices,  according  to 
tradition,  were  cutby  Francescoda  Bologna  (?  Francia  the  engraver). 
It  was  first  used  in  the  Aldine  Virgil  of  1501.  Aldus  was  also,  largely 


WOODCUTS 


!3 


work  being  unimportant  in  that  for  the  most  part  it  was 
made  for  a  popular  and  unlearned  audience,  it  sufficed 
that  the  designs  should  not  always  be  new  or  independ¬ 
ent  in  conception,  the  purchasers,  it  would  seem,  pre¬ 
ferring  to  see  in  their  book  illustrations  a  constant  and 
steady  reflexion  of  the  paintings  and  sculpture  and  archi¬ 
tecture  with  which  they  were  familiar  in  the  churches 
and  other  public  buildings.  The  sculpture  and  architec¬ 
ture  in  Renaissance  Italy  was  so  simple  in  its  lines  when 
compared  with  the  types  then  current  in  Germany,  that 
it  was  an  obvious  and  comparatively  easy  matter  to  carry 
over  the  same  general  feeling  of  restraint  and  clarity 
into  the  decoration  of  books  and  into  the  backgrounds 
of  woodcut  pictures,  so  much  so  that  one  of  the  notice¬ 
able  traits  of  the  Italian  woodcut  prior  to  1500  is  its 
close  reflection  of  local  monumental  art. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  aspeCt  of  the  book  illus¬ 
trations  of  the  period  just  prior  to  1500  is  the  perfectly 
delightful  understanding  which  their  makers  had  of  the 
particular  piCtorial  and  physical  problems  confronting 
them.  The  thing  which  they  held  uppermost  in  their 
minds  was  the  necessity  that  a  successful  illustration, 
in  addition  to  being  a  pleasing  design,  should  tell  a  story, 
swiftly  and  easily  to  be  comprehended.  With  their  deli¬ 
cate  sense  of  proportion  and  their  most  human  interest 
in  the  stories  that  they  were  telling,  these  anonymous 
workers  developed  a  terseness  of  statement  and  a  direct¬ 
ness  of  attack  upon  the  central  problems  of  illustration, 
which  can  best  be  compared  to  the  literary  manner  of 
their  favorite  story-tellers.  In  very  few  of  the  Italian 
cuts  is  one  ever  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  the  de- 

through  the  use  of  the  narrow  italic  type,  the  first  printer  to  put 
forth  in  any  number  volumes  of  a  size  suitable  to  be  slipped  in  one’s 
pocket,  many  of  his  editions  of  the  classics  being  about  the  size  of 
the  familiar  Everyman’s  Library  books. 


14 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


signer  was  trying  to  express.  There  are  so  few  figures, 
the  figures  are  so  clearly  differentiated  each  from  the 
other,  and  each  of  them  is  so  evidently  doing  just  what 
he  is  doing,  the  notation  of  gesture,  however  ready,  is 
so  just  and  so  charming,  that  unless  one  is  careful  the 
little  pidfures  may  at  first  sight  seem  too  easy  and  simple 
to  be  really  “works  of  art.”  But  the  sheer  loveliness 
and  freshness  of  the  designs,  and  the  fine  workmanlike 
intelligence  lying  back  of  the  severe  simplification  of 
statement  in  many  of  them,  prove  that  they  are  the  re¬ 
sult  of  that  highly  conscious  and  deliberate  craftsman¬ 
ship  which  in  ordinary  life  one  is  apt  to  meet  only  in 
the  pages  of  some  anthology  of  lyrics. 

The  Italian  woodcut  seems  to  have  grown  diredflyout 
of  a  manual  pradfice  not  that  of  the  painter’s  studio.  In 
Germany  the  woodcutter,  generally  speaking,  was  set 
the  task  of  makingafacsimileof  a  line  drawn  on  the  block 
by  an  artist  who  seems  in  most  instances  to  have  known 
little  more  about  the  wood-block  than  some  of  its  major 
limitations,  whereas  the  Italian  woodcut  design  of  the 
early  Renaissance,  at  least  in  Florence  and  Venice*  — 
the  two  places  where  it  reached  its  finest  and  most  abun¬ 
dant  development  —  was,  to  judge  from  the  internal  evi¬ 
dence  afforded  by  the  prints  themselves,  based  upon  the 
tradition  and  experience  of  men  who  worked  habitually 
with  knives  and  chisels  rather  than  with  pen  and  paper. f 

*  Dr.  Kristeller  ( Kupferstich  und  Holzschnitt,  1905,  p.  149)  points 
out  that  the  only  North  Italian  woodcut  school  to  be  independent 
of  an  overpowering  Venetian  influence  was  the  Florentine.  So  far  as 
Roman  and  Neapolitan  woodcuts  are  concerned,  they  appearto  have 
been  the  work  of  men  from  the  North,  for  no  local  schools  seem  to 
have  been  developed. 

f  This  opinion  has  been  frequently  advanced,  but  especially  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  Florentine  book  illustrations.  The  late  Prince  of  Ess- 
ling,  in  his  Litres  a  Figures  (Part  III,  p.  26),  took  the  subjeft  up 
again  from  the  Venetian  point  of  view,  and  noting  the  fa£l  that  the 
workers  in  intarsia  had  for  many  years  prior  to  1500  done  work 


WOODCUTS 


15 


Not  so  much  “great  artists”  giving  vent  to  their  idio¬ 
syncrasies  and  self-consciousness  as  highly  intelligent 
artisans  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  fine  craftsmanship, 
the  makers  of  these  cuts  yielded  themselves  to  their 
medium,  basing  their  designs  and  linear  method  on  its 
nature,  and  on  the  easiest  ways  of  working  it,  seeing  the 
finished  print  through  the  printing  surface  rather  than 
through  pen  and  paper.  Thus  the  Florentines  freely 
availed  themselves  of  the  untouched  surface  of  the  wood, 
producing  thereby  large  expanses  of  black  of  a  kind 
never  to  be  found  in  the  work  of  the  northern  reed-pen 
schools,  and  only  to  be  matched  in  the  woodcuts  of 
Japan,  where  the  solid  blacks  again  grew  out  of  a  phys¬ 
ical  fadtor,  in  that  case  the  peculiar  Japanese  drawing 
brush.  These  masses  of  black  were  difficult  to  print, 
however,  in  such  a  manner  that  the  color  should  be  even 
throughout,  and  therefore,  like  the  craftsmen  they  were, 
they  solved  the  difficulty  in  the  easiest  possible  way,  by 
scratching  the  broad  surfaces  with  the  points  of  their 
knives  so  that  they  were  broken  up  and  the  difficulty 
of  impression  avoided.  The  Florentines,  again,  imme¬ 
diately  realized  that  if  an  even  impression  were  to  be 
had  in  their  rather  quick  and  careless  printing  of  the 
chap-books  in  which  the  most  delightful  of  their  cuts 
appeared,  there  should  be  some  support  for  the  platen 
of  the  press,  so  that  in  taking  the  impression  it  might 
not  exert  an  undue  pressure  on  isolated  lines.  This  also 

which  in  its  mechanical  aspefts  closely  resembled  that  of  the  wood¬ 
cutter,  reproduced  an  intarsia  sell-portrait  of  Antonio  Barili,  dated 
i  502,  now  in  the  Vienna  Museum  fur  Kunst  und  Industrie,  which 
shows  the  master  at  work  with  his  tools.  The  piffure  might  well 
be  that  of  a  wood-block  cutter,  and  is  a  most  interesting  and  val¬ 
uable  piece  of  evidence.  Both  Dr.  Kristeller  and  the  Prince  of  Ess- 
ling  agree  in  saying  that  the  early  Venetian  block-book  referred 
to  in  the  note  on  page  1 1  is  based  upon  sculptor's  draughtsmanship 
rather  than  painter’s,  and  repeatedly  refer  to  the  informing  influ¬ 
ence  of  sculpture  upon  Venetian  woodcut  design. 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


16 

they  solved  in  the  easiest  way,  not  by  making  improve¬ 
ments  in  their  presses  or  by  taking  greater  pains  in  their 
pressmanship,  but  by  surrounding  each  little  cut  with 
a  heavy  black  border,  broken  only  by  a  conventional 
pattern,  in  such  manner  that  each  block  had  incorpo¬ 
rated  with  it  its  own  support.* 

Largely  because  of  such  things  as  these,  the  Floren¬ 
tine  woodcut,  elegant  and  accomplished  and  charming 
as  it  was,  never  had  quite  the  same  aloofness  from  its  ma¬ 
terial,  never  quite  the  same  feeling  as  of  extraordinary 
difficulty  overcome,  that  is  so  marked  in  the  German 
work.  Its  beauty,  and  it  is  frequently  very  great,  always 
remained  that  of  the  finely  designed  and  well-made 
example  of  craftsmanship,  of  the  thing  that  is  wholly 
consistent  with  itself  and  at  ease,  and  never  stands  forth 
commanding  the  attention  of  the  world  as  for  some  tour 
de  force  achieved.']' 

It  may  well  be  that  because  of  this  very  craftsman¬ 
like  approach  to  their  work,  the  Italian  woodcut  makers 
produced  lines  largely  lacking  in  that  nervous  quality 
which  is  so  noticeable  in  the  woodcuts  of  those  other 
schools  whose  work  approached  being  facsimile  of  pen 
drawing.  A  pen  line  is  usually  nervous  and  full  of  accents, 
and  its  proper  rendering  is  a  matter  of  some  difficulty; 
for  the  cutter’s  knife  or  gouge,  being  stuck  into  a  heavy, 
thick  mass  of  material  through  which  it  must  be  forced, 
does  not  naturally  follow  any  but  the  most  regular  path. 
The  Italian  woodcut,  based  on  the  simplest  way  of  work- 

*  A  few  of  what  appear  to  be  the  earliest  Florentine  borders  are  in 
open  line  (see  Nos.  21  and  22  in  this  exhibition). 

fi  “One  may  say  without  exaggeration  that,  generally  speaking, 
Florentine  book  illustration,  during  its  short  flowering,  is  artistically 
the  most  finished  and  delightful  that  has  ever  been  produced  in  this 
field.  Only  in  richness  of  ornament  does  it  lag  behind  the  Venetians, 
who  undoubtedly  owe  their  great  success  therein  primarily  to  their 
dependence  upon  the  plastic  arts.”  (Kristeller,  Kupferstich  und  Holz- 
schnitt,  1905,  p.  149.) 


WOODCUTS 


l7 


ing  the  knife,  has  thus  a  native  quality  springing  directly 
from  the  materials  and  tools  used  in  its  production,  which, 
while  different  from,  should  not  be  regarded  as  inferior 
to,  the  more  nervous  facsimile  work;  a  linear  quality  that, 
in  such  books  as  the  Hypnerotomachia  (Nos.  73  and  74 
in  this  exhibition),  approaches  closely  that  of  a  finely 
designed  and  cut  piece  of  type.*  The  difference  between 
such  work  as  that  and  the  typical  northern  facsimile 
cuts  may  perhaps  be  likened  to  that  between  a  piece  of 
wood  sculpture  in  which  the  surfaces  have  been  boldly 
cut  and  a  bronze  casting  from  moulded  wax.  Whatever 
the  Italians  may  have  lost  through  negleCt  of  the  ner¬ 
vous  line,  they  more  than  redeemed  through  their  clear 
realization  of  the  crucial  faCt  that  in  a  finished  composi¬ 
tion  in  black  and  white  beauty  of  texture  is  not  so  much 
a  question  of  the  nervous  quality  of  the  single  lines  as 
of  the  construction  of  the  linear  web  as  a  whole.  Thus 
they  exhibited  an  almost  unequaled  sensitiveness  to  the 
greatvalue  of  blocks  of  whiteand  black  whenjudiciously 
counterpoised,  to  the  “color”  which  may  be  gained  by 
massing  regularly  laid  lines  varying  slightly  in  spacing 
and  direction,  and  above  all  to  the  great  value  of  an 
architectonic  method  of  building  up  their  compositions 
whether  piCtorial  or  purely  decorative. *f  Largely  because 

*  There  seems  in  faCl  to  be  good  reason  for  believing  that  a  num¬ 
ber  of  the  “woodcuts”  with  which  Renaissance  books  were  illus¬ 
trated  were  printed  from  metal  blocks.  The  distinction  between  the 
two  is  most  difficult  to  make  from  an  examination  of  the  prints 
alone,  and  the  long  discussions  of  the  earlier  writers,  and  the  cate¬ 
gories  into  which  they  divided  the  relief  prints  they  were  describ¬ 
ing,  have  been  shown  in  large  measure  to  be  fanciful.  The  late  M. 
Bouchot  of  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  at  Paris  was  of  the  opinion 
that  the  early  printers  availed  themselves  of  “clichage”  or  stereo¬ 
typing,  but  one  may  have  one’s  doubts  about  the  accuracy  of  the 
data  upon  which  he  based  this  conjecture. 

f  The  formal  decorations  in  the  printed  books  are  at  least  as  re¬ 
markable  in  their  way  as  the  illustrations,  many  of  the  Venetian 
cuts  ranking  among  the  finest  “ornaments”  that  we  have  in  black 


i8 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


of  this  it  is  doubtful  whether  one  can  find  in  black  and 
white  a  more  astonishing  array  of  beautiful  designs  pro¬ 
duced  in  an  equally  short  period  than  those  contained  in 
the  reproductions  of  woodcuts  from  Venetian  and  Flor¬ 
entine  incunabula  in  the  several  books  and  articles  by 
Dr.  Paul  Kristeller  and  by  the  late  Prince  of  Essling, 
and  in  the  several  facsimiles  of  the  Hypnerotomachia 
(Nos.  73  and  74  in  this  exhibition), a  strange  macaronic 
romance, thefirst  edition  of  which  (Venice,  Aldus,  1499) 
has  long  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  perhaps  the 
most  beautiful  illustrated  book  ever  printed.*' 

After  1500  there  was  a  rapid  decline  in  the  beauty 
of  the  Italian  black  and  white  woodcut,  the  Florentine 
printers  apparently  having  accumulated  a  supply  of 
blocks  which  sufficed  for  their  purposes,  while  in  Ven¬ 
ice,  one  of  the  great  centers  of  the  Renaissance  book 
trade,  there  were  so  many  conflicting  elements  and 
styles,  and  so  great  a  competition  between  the  publish¬ 
ers,  that  the  standards  set  during  the  preceding  ten  years 
were  largely  forgotten.  Generally  speaking,  therefore, 
it  may  be  taken  as  true  that  until  the  emergence  of  a 

and  white.  In  addition  to  the  many  charming  borders  and  floriated 
initials,  attention  must  especially  be  called  to  the  printers’  and  pub¬ 
lishers’  devices. 

*  The  Hypnerotomachia  is  one  of  the  very  few  elaborately  illus¬ 
trated  books  printed  in  Italy  prior  to  1  500  for  men  of  learning,  and 
the  only  one  printed  by  Aldus.  That  he  printed  it  at  all  is  prob¬ 
ably  due  to  the  faff  that  it  was  not  published  by  him,  but  on  the 
order  and  at  the  expense  of  a  certain  Leonardo  Crasso  of  Verona. 
The  designer  of  the  172  cuts  contained  in  it,  some  of  which  are 
signed  with  a  little  “b,”  is  unknown,  but  in  the  earlier  literature 
they  have  been  attributed  at  one  time  or  another  to  the  Bellini,  Ra¬ 
phael,  Mantegna,  Carpaccio,  Bartolommeo  Montagna,  Sperandio, 
and  Jacopo  de’  Barbari,  among  others(see  J.  W.  Appel],  The  Dream 
of  Poliphilus,  London,  1893)  —  a  list  of  names  in  itself  sufficient 
to  prove  not  only  the  fallibility  of  connoisseurship  but  the  artistic 
merit  of  thedesigns.  A  list  of  books  seemingly  illustrated  by  the  same 
hand  may  be  found  in  J.  Poppelreuter,  Der  anonyme  Meistcr  des 
Poliphilo,  Strassburg,  1904. 


WOODCUTS 


19 


number  of  important  woodcutters  toward  the  end  of  the 
first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  work  is  of  little 
value.  The  one  important  thing  during  this  dull  period 
is  that  under  the  competition  of  engravings  on  copper 
there  sprang  up  a  demand  for  illustrations  in  which 
there  was  shading,  the  earlier  work  having  been  almost 
entirely  confined  to  outline  and  the  simple  linear  indi¬ 
cation  of  detail.  This  shading  at  first  took  the  form  of 
a  coarse  rendering  of  the  conventional  Italian  pen  and 
engraved  work,  in  which  the  masses  of  shadow  were 
represented  by  parallel  lines  running  diagonally  across 
the  figures  and  objects  represented,  rather  than  by  lines 
following  the  exterior  contours.  From  this  gradually 
grew  a  greater  deftness  in  cutting,  as  it  became  almost 
a  necessity  that  the  pen  lines  should  be  carefully  fac¬ 
similed  in  order  to  secure  any  relief  or  modeling  in  the 
figures. 

Much  of  the  book  illustration  of  the  mid-sixteenth 
century  is  of  the  greatest  charm  and  beauty,  for  it  has 
to  a  most  surprising  extent  a  feeling  for  style,  a  supple 
use  of  the  current  forms  of  decoration,  which  overrides 
any  defects  of  power  or  sensitive  draughtsmanship.  A 
great  deal  of  the  charm  is  undoubtedly  due  to  the  bor¬ 
ders  with  which  the  illustrations  and  the  pages  were  sur¬ 
rounded —  in  which  may  easily  be  recognized  the  frank¬ 
est  utilization  of  the  decorative  motives  of  the  architects 
and  sculptors.  Comparatively  little  of  this  later  work  is 
shown  here,  because  of  the  fact  that  simultaneously  with 
it  there  appeared  a  class  of  large  single-sheet  woodcuts, 
for  the  most  part  from  perfectly  definite  hands  and  of 
a  more  direct  decorative  interest,  which  therefore  in  the 
limited  space  at  hand  seemed  better  worth  while  ex- 

Prior  to  1500,  although  it  is  possible  to  form  various 
groups  very  similar  in  character,  there  are  but  few  de- 


20 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


signers  or  cutters  of  woodcuts  who  can,  with  assurance, 
be  singled  out  —  the  several  monograms  which  appear 
beings  apparently  only  workshop  signatures.*'  Bernhard 
Berenson  has  claimed  for  a  little  known  master,  whom 
for  convenience’  sake  he  calls  Alunno  di  Domenico,  the 
authorship  of  a  very  large  portion  of  the  most  charm¬ 
ing  of  the  Florentine  blocks, f  but  his  theory  is  based 
entirely  upon  the  internal  evidence  afforded  by  the  cuts 
themselves,  and  seems  not  to  have  been  universally  ac¬ 
cepted.  There  is  a  long-lived  and  sturdy  tradition  to  the 
effedf  that  Matteo  de  Pasti  made  and  cut  with  his  own 
hand  the  little  pictures  which  are  found  in  the  edition 
of  Valturius’  Art  of  War ,  printed  at  Verona  in  1472. 
He  doubtless  may  have  made  a  set  of  designs  from  which 
the  cuts  were  copied,  but  there  is  nothing  positive  to 
show  that  he  actually  ever  touched  any  of  the  blocks 
with  either  pen  or  knife.  The  verses  constituting  the 
colophon  of  the  edition  of  John  of  Holywood’s  Sphaera 
Mundi ,  printed  at  Venice  in  1488,  state  specifically  that 
the  astronomical  figures  were  invented  by  a  certain  John 
Santritter  of  Heilbronn  and  were  cut  on  the  block  by 
Jerome  de  Sandfis,^  who  is  thus  the  only  woodcutter 


*  See  Essling,  Litres  a  Figures,  Part  III,  p.  90. 

f  The  Burlington  Magazine,  vol.  i  (1903),  where  he  says  of  “Alun- 
no:”“In  his  phase  as  illustrator  (in  the  narrower  sense  of  the 
word),  there  scarcely  ever  has  been  one  more  charming”  (p.  19), 
and  again  :  “This  minor  painter  .  .  .  was  a  book-illustrator  charm¬ 
ing  as  few  in  vision  and  interpretation,  with  scarcely  a  rival  for 
daintiness  and  refinement  of  arrangement,  spacing,  and  distribution 
of  black  and  white”  (p.  18). 

|  Carmina  in  impressorum  huius  operis  laudem. 

Uranie  quantum  quantum  debere  fatentur 
Cuncta  canopeo  :  cognitaque  astra  viro 
Santriter  helbronna  lucili  ex  urbe  Johannes 
Schemata  sic  debent  ipsa  reperta  tibi 
Naec  minus  haec  tibi  de  san£tis  hieronyme  debent 
Quam  socio  :  namque  hie  invenit:  ipse  secas. 

For  lists  of  prints  ascribed  to  Jerome  see  Dr.  Kristeller’s  Eine  Folge 


WOODCUTS 


21 


prior  to  1500  in  Italy  of  whom  we  have  positive  evi¬ 
dence.  Possibly  two  of  Jacopo  de’  Barbari’s  three  wood- 
cuts  were  made  in  the  fifteenth  century,  but  nothing  is 
known  as  to  their  exadt  dates  (see  Kristeller,  Engrav¬ 
ings  and  Woodcuts  by  'Jacopo  de  Barbari ,  London,  1896), 
while  Dr.  Lippmann  in  his  The  Woodcuts  of  the  Master 
/.  B.  with  the  Bird  (London,  1894),  attributes  some  of 
the  illustrations  in  a  Tesauro  spirituale ,  printed  at  Milan 
in  1499,  to  that  master. 

One  other  man  especially  deserves  mention  in  the 
period  prior  to  1500,  not  because  he  was  an  artist  but 
because  he,  Erhard  Ratdolt  of  Augsburg,  was  a  printer 
who  solved  the  pradfical  difficulties  in  the  way  of  print¬ 
ing  a  pidlure  in  two  colors.*  He  set  up  as  a  printer  in 
Venice  in  1476,  where  he  formed  a  partnership  with 
two  other  men,  described  in  the  colophons  of  the  part¬ 
nership’s  books  as  u  Bernardus  pidtor”  of  Augsburg 
and  “  Petrus  loslein”  of  Langenzenn.  The  partnership 
made  perhaps  as  beautiful  books  as  were  produced  by 
the  early  Venetian  press,  than  which  no  praise  can  be 
higher,  printed  the  first  Venetian  woodcut  books,  and 


f vcnezianischcr  H0lz.se/1nitte  aus  dem  XV  Jahrhundert ,  Berlin,  1909, 
p.  5,  and  the  Prince  of  Essling’s  Livres  a  Figures ,  vol.  i,  No.  260, 
and  Part  III,  pp.  65  et  seq.  The  name  of  Jerome  de  San6tis  is  in  itself 
of  considerable  interest,  as  it  goes  to  show  that  he  came  of  a  line  of 
imagiers,  the  patronymic  “de  Sanftis”  being  nothing  more  than  a 
nickname  taken  from  the  business  of  supplying  the  little  piffures  of 
saints  which  the  Venetian  churches  were  in  the  custom  of  distribut¬ 
ing  or  selling  to  the  pious.  Thus  there  are  a  number  of  entries  in  the 
Venetian  archives  relating  to  men  who  followed  this  trade,  and  they 
are  in  several  instances  referred  to  by  this  name.  In  the  XVI  century 
there  are  records  of  payments  having  been  made  by  the  churches  for 
“santi-grandi,”  “santi-piccoli,”  and  “santi-doradi”  —  all  referring 
to  the  little  printed  pictures —  a  survival  of  the  trade  in  the  “Heili- 
gen”  to  which  so  much  space  is  devoted  in  the  earlier  textbooks  on 
the  history  of  the  woodcut  in  Germany.  (See  Essling,  op.  cit.,  Part  III, 
pp.  29  et  seq.) 

*  See  Gilbert  R.  Redgrave,  Erhard  Ratdolt  and  his  IVork  at  Venice, 
London,  1894,  p.  16. 


22 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


was  responsible  for  seven  borders,  several  of  which  are 
treasured  as  being  among  the  most  noteworthy  pieces  of 
pure  ornament  ever  cut  upon  a  wood-block.*  Important 
as  the  borders  are,  however,  Ratdolt’s  principal  claim  to 
remembrance,  so  far  as  the  woodcut  is  concerned,  is  the 
fa£I  that  in  the  1485  edition  of  the  Sphaera  Mundi  by 
John  of  Holy  wood  (No.  65  in  this  exhibition),  he  for  the 
first  time  printed  pictures  in  more  than  black  and  white. 
To  be  sure,  they  are  but  the  simplest  kind  of  astrono¬ 
mical  diagrams;  but  as  Ratdolt  himself  was  to  show  in 
the  Brixen  Missal  which  he  afterwards  printed  in  1493  at 
Augsburg,']'  there  is  little  or  no  difference,  mechanically 
speaking,  between  printing  a  diagram  and  a  picture  in 
colors.  And  so  it  is  that  in  this  book  with  its  little  circles 
of  black  and  olive  drab  and  red  we  see  the  most  impor¬ 
tant  of  the  first  steps  taken  toward  that  development 
of  the  printed  pidlure  in  color  with  which  our  bill-boards 
and  our  magazines  are  flooded  at  the  present  time.]; 

*  The  most  famous  Italian  Renaissance  border  is  doubtless  that 
of  the  Herodotus  printed  by  the  brothers  John  and  Gregory  de  Gre- 
goriis  in  1494.  There  seem  to  be  reasons  for  believing  it  to  be  by 
the  same  artist  who  designed  the  cuts  in  the  Hypnerotomachia ,  which 
itself  contains  many  most  beautiful  typographical  ornaments.  The 
vignette  at  the  bottom  of  the  Herodotus  border  is  curiously  like  a 
drawing  in  the  Christ  Church  collection  at  Oxford,  reproduced 
facing  p.  40  in  J.  Poppelreuter’s  Der  anonyme  Meister  des  Poliphilo, 
Strassburg,  1904,  which  Dr.  Kristeller  ( Early  Florentine  Woodcuts, 
p.  xliii)  attributes  to  Lucantonio  degli  Uberti. 

f  See  Dodgson,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  36. 

J  In  Forrer  (op.  cit.)  there  are  reproduced  printed  textiles  attributed 
to  the  XII-XIII  century  in  which  the  design  was  printed  in  two 
and  even  in  three  colors.  As  these  were  block  prints  in  which  the 
impression  was  obtained  either  by  hand  pressure  or  by  striking  the 
backs  of  the  blocks  with  a  mallet,  the  mechanical  problem  was 
quite  different  from  that  presented  by  the  printing-press.  In  the 
audition  catalogue  of  Herr  Schreiber’s  collediiion  (Vienna,  1909)  a 
woodcut  (Schreiber  1 2 1 6  a)  of  Saint  Anthony  of  Padua  is  described 
(lot  No.  26)  as  being  partly  printed  in  color  and  partly  colored  with 
stencils,  although  in  the  description  in  the  Manuel  no  mention  is 
made  ot  any  color  printing.  In  both  Manuel  and  sale  catalogue  it 


WOODCUTS 


23 


The  question  of  register  having  been  solved  as  a  prac¬ 
tical  matter,  it  was  not  long  before  the  artists  who  were 
accustomed  to  design  for  the  block  took  the  matter  up. 
In  1 507,  Lucas  Cranach  the  elder,  of  Wittenberg,  used 
it  to  make  a  facsimile  of  a  pen  drawing  of  Saint  George 
in  black  and  gold  on  paper  tinted  blue  by  hand,  an  im¬ 
pression  of  which  is  preserved  in  the  British  Museum, 
and  immediately  afterward  Hans  Burgkmaier  of  Augs¬ 
burg,  apparently  stung  by  some  boasting  remarks  in  cor¬ 
respondence  that  passed  between  the  two  cities,  made 
pictures  of  Saint  George  and  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian 
in  which  much  the  same  result  was  reached.*  The  differ¬ 
ence  between  the  two  was  that  where  Cranach  printed 
both  his  black  and  his  white  from  separate  line  blocks  on 
a  piece  of  colored  paper,  Burgkmaier  used  white  paper, 
printing  his  blacks  from  an  ordinary  line  block,  and  get¬ 
ting  both  his  color  and  his  whites  by  incising  the  latter 
in  a  solid  block  which  was  then  printed  in  colored  ink.j" 
The  Germans  seem  very  rarely  to  have  departed  from  the 
pen-line  basis  in  making  their  color  prints,  even  though 
in  a  few  instances  they  did  produce  cuts  in  several  colors 
in  which  the  black  block  was  largely  eliminated.!  The 

is  attributed  to  the  end  of  the  XV  century,  but  where  the  Man¬ 
uel  gives  its  provenance  as  either  Savoy  or  Italy,  the  sale  catalogue 
says  it  is  apparently  of  Spanish  origin.  In  view  of  so  much  conflict 
of  opinion  it  is  probably  wisest  to  consider  the  print  as  being  very 
interesting  without  going  further  and  claiming  it  to  be,  as  the  sale 
catalogue  does,  “  bedeutend  als  einer  der  friihesten  wenn  nicht  uber- 
haupt  als  ditester  Farbenholzschnitt.” 

*  See  Dodgson  {op.  cit .),  vol.  i  (1903),  pp.  254  et  seq.,  and  vol.  ii 
( 1 9 1 1 ),  PP-  74,  286,  296. 

+  There  is  reason  for  believing  that  the  technical  improvement  in 
Burgkmaier’s  cuts  was  due  rather  to  Jost  de  Negker,  his  woodcutter, 
than  to  Burgkmaier  himself.  See  Dodgson,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  257. 

t  In  the  Museum  colle&ion  are  impressions  of  Cranach’s  Saint 
Christopher  (B.  58),  apparently  made  in  1509,  and  of  Burgkmaier’s 
Death  and  the  Lovers  (B.  40)  of  1 5 1  o,  the  first  of  which  is  similar  in 
technique  to  the  Burgkmaier  Saint  George,  the  black  block  carrying 


24 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


further  step  in  the  utilization  of  the  process  was  taken  by 
an  Italian  named  Ugo  da  Carpi,  who  in  1516  petitioned 
the  Venetian  government  for  a  patent  for  a  new  method 
of  printing  in  colors.*  His  process  was  nothing  more  than 
the  German  scheme,  so  far  as  the  mechanical  aspeCts  of 
it  went,  but  it  did  differ  materially  in  practice,  as  after 
his  first  few  prints,  which  were  done  in  much  the  same 
way  as  the  Saint  George  of  Burgkmaier,he  largely  aban¬ 
doned  the  reproduction  of  pen  lines  and  the  use  of  posi¬ 
tive  color  and  confined  himself  to  the  reproduction  of 
wash  drawings  in  several  intensities  of  one  neutral  color, 
or  at  most  in  several  neutral  tints  of  much  the  same 
value.  His  process  was  taken  up  by  a  number  of  Italians, 
concerning  whom  curiously  little  is  known,  who  used 
it  to  great  advantage  in  the  reproduction  of  drawings 
and  designs  by  a  number  of  the  painters  of  the  time. 
Thus,  many  of  Raphael’s  designs  were  used  by  Ugo, 
while  Antonio  da  Trento  and  Giuseppe  Nicolo  Vicen- 
tino  seem  to  have  made  a  specialty  of  the  reproduction 
of  Parmigiano’s  drawings.  Later,  toward  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  process  was  used  to  powerful  ef- 
feCt  by  Andrea  Andreani,  who  not  only  cut  many  blocks 
of  his  own  but  purchased  blocks  by  the  men  just  men¬ 
tioned,  and  reprinted  them  after  inserting  his  own  ini¬ 
tials.  Perhaps  his  most  important  work  is  the  set  of  the 
Triumphs  of  Caesar  which  he  made  in  Mantua  in  1599 
after  the  celebrated  paintings  thereby  Mantegna.  Almost 
the  last  of  the  woodcutters  who  worked  in  this  style  in 

a  complete  design,  while  the  latter  marks  a  half-way  stage  to  the 
Italian  practice,  much  of  the  essential  drawing  being  printed  from 
one  of  the  color  blocks. 

*  See  Passavant,  Peintre  Grwveur,  vol.  vi,  p.  208.  The  first  date  to 
which  I  have  found  reference  as  appearing  on  an  Italian  chiaroscuro 
is  1518  (see  Ibid.,  p.  2 1  o),  which  occurs  on  the  first  state  of  the  Death 
of  Ananias  (B.  27),  No.  81  in  this  exhibition,  and  on  the  Aeneas  and 
Anchises  (B.  1 2),  both  by  Ugo  after  Raphael. 


WOODCUTS 


25 


Italy  was  Bartolomeo  Coriolano  of  Bologna,  whose 
work  is  practically  confined  to  the  designs  of  Guido 
Reni.  Woodcuts  of  this  type  are  of  the  greatest  rarity 
in  fine  condition,  as  having  been  used  for  wall  decora¬ 
tion,  they  were  subject  to  all  the  accidents  and  neglect 
of  the  small  household,  from  which  extraordinarily  few 
escaped. 

The  first  major  personality  to  appear  in  the  Italian 
woodcut  is  Jacopo  de’  Barbari,  well  known  through  his 
intercourse  with  Diirer,  who  designed  a  large  bird’s-eye 
viewof  Venicethat  was  published  in  1500.  This,  like  the 
woodcuts  of  an  anonymous  master,  known  by  his  sig¬ 
nature  “I.  B.”  followed  by  a  little  bird,  who  flourished 
about  1 503,  are  of  such  great  rarity  that  they  are  known 
only  in  a  few  of  the  great  European  national  collections. 
Later  on  come  artists  like  Domenico  Campagnola  and 
Titian,  who  either  drew  on  the  block  for  the  cutter  or 
else  were  in  the  habit  of  having  woodcuts  made  after 
their  designs.  Many  of  these  cuts  are  very  large  in  size 
and  are  done  in  rather  a  coarse  manner,  which, however, 
does  not  affect  the  power  or  the  decorative  quality  of  the 
work.  W ith  the  exception  of  Andreani’s  blocks,  the  most 
important  woodcuts  of  the  close  of  the  century  are  prob¬ 
ably  those  made  from  the  designs  of  Giovanni  Maria 
Verdizotti  and  Giuseppe Scolari, although  the  fameofthe 
book  of  costumes  by  Cesare  Vecellio,  Titian’s  nephew 
(No.  80  in  this  exhibition),  is  greater  than  that  of  the  work 
of  either  of  the  other  men.  Verdizotti  published  in  1570 
at  Venice  his  Cento  Favole ,  illustrated  with  one  hundred 
cuts  (No.  79  in  the  exhibition).  These  were  in  all  prob¬ 
ability  drawn  on  the  block  by  Verdizotti  himself,  who 
was  an  amateur  draughtsman  of  Titian’s  school,  and 
among  them  are  to  be  found  some  of  the  most  charm¬ 
ing  woodcuts  of  the  late  Renaissance.  Scolari’s  work, 
unlike  that  of  Verdizotti,  is  cast  in  a  very  large  mould, 


26 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


and  is  remarkable  for  itsswingand  powerful  useof  black 
and  white.  His  big  blocks,  like  the  little  ones  of  the  fa¬ 
mous  Englishman,  Thomas  Bewick,  two  hundred  years 
later,  contain  much  white  line,  with  a  plentiful  use  of 
strong  black  spaces,  and  for  a  certain  swagger  quality 
can  be  compared  only  to  the  blocks  cut  by  Christoffel 
de  Jeghers  after  Rubens’s  designs. 

The  present  exhibition  illustrates  after  a  manner  the 
history  of  the  woodcut  in  Italy  from  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century  to  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth. 
In  it  is  to  be  seen  work  of  every  degree  of  skill  in  cut¬ 
ting,  and,  broadly  speaking,  examples  of  every  kind  of 
work  produced  prior  to  the  discovery  of  the  fa£t  that 
engraving  tools  could  be  used  across  the  grain  of  the 
wood  —  the  discovery  on  which  was  based  the  modern 
development  of  the  wood-block,  especially  that  tendency 
to  discard  the  use  of  positive  line  in  favor  of  “tints,” 
which  was  the  marked  departure  of  the  end  of  the  last 
century  and  which  possibly  reached  its  apogee  in  the 
work  of  such  Americans  as  Kruell,  Kingsley,  Wolf,  and 
the  happily  still  living  Timothy  Cole. 


W.  M.  I.,  jr. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Appell,  J.  W. 

The  Dream  of  Poliphilus.  London,  1893. 

Bartsch,  Adam 

Le  Peintre  Graveur.  Vienna,  1803-21. 

Brown,  Horatio  F. 

The  Venetian  Printing  Press.  London,  1891. 

Delaborde, H. 

La  Gravure  en  Italie  avant  Marc -Antoine.  Paris,  n.d.  [1883]. 
Didot,  A.  Firmin 

Essai  .  .  .  sur  1’histoire  cle  la  gravure  sur  bois.  Paris,  1863. 
Fisher,  Richard 

Introduction  to  a  Catalogue  of  the  Early  Italian  Prints  in  the  Brit¬ 
ish  Museum.  London,  1886. 

Kristeller,  Paul 

Early  Florentine  Woodcuts.  London,  1897. 

II  trionfo  della  fede;  Holzschnittfolge  nach  Tizians  Zeichnung. 
Berlin,  1906. 

Eine  Folge  venezianische  Holzschnitte  ausdem  XV  Jahrhundert. 
Berlin,  1909. 

Die  italienischen  Buchdrucker-  und  Verlegerzeichen  bis  1525. 
Strassburg,  1893. 

Engravings  and  Woodcuts  by  Jacopo  de’  Barbari.  London,  1896. 
Ein  venezianisches  Blockbuch  .  . . ,  in  Jahrb.  d.  k.  Preuss.  Kunst- 
sammlungen,  vol.  22,  p.  132. 

La  xilographia  veneziana,  in  Archivio  storico  dell’  Arte,  V,  p.  95. 
Die  Lombardische  Graphik  der  Renaissance.  Berlin,  1913. 
Kupferstich  und  Holzschnitt  in  vier  Jahrhunderten.  Berlin,  1905. 
Lippmann,  Friedrich 

The  Art  of  Wood-Engraving  in  Italy  in  the  Fifteenth  Century. 
London,  1888. 

The  Woodcuts  of  the  Master  I.  B.  with  the  Bird.  London,  1894. 

Massena,  Victor  (sub  nom.  Prince  d' Es sling) 

Les  Livres  a  Figures  Venitiens  au  fin  du  XVe  Siecle  et  du  Com¬ 
mencement  du  XVIe.  Paris,  1907—14. 

Massena,  Victor  (sub  nom.  Due  de  Rinsoli ) 

Les  Missels  imprimes  a  Venise  de  1481  a  1600.  Paris,  1895. 


28 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Passavant,  J.  D. 

Le  Peintre  Graveur.  Leipsic,  iB  60-64. 

Pollard,  A.  W. 

Italian  Book  Illustrations.  London ,  1894. 

Early  Illustrated  Books.  London ,  1893. 

Old  Pi6ture  Books.  London,  1902. 

POPPELREUTER, J. 

Der  anonyme  Meister  des  Poliphilo.  Strassburg,  1 904. 

Schrei  ber,  W.  L. 

Manuel  de  l’amateur  de  la  gravure  sur  bois  et  sur  metal.  Berlin 
(and  Leipsic ),  1891-1911. 


CATALOGUE 


PART 
WOODCUTS  I 


I 

r  BOOKS 


NOTE 


To  save  space,  identification  has  been  made,  so  far  as  possible, 
by  references  to  standard  catalogues.  Several  of  the  incunabula 
not  being  described  in  such  books,  references  for  them  have  been 
made  to  the  catalogue  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  s  library  prepared 
by  Alfred  IV.  Pollard 

B  =  Bartsch,  Peintre  Graveur. 

E  =  Essling,  Livres  a  Figures  Venitiens. 

Hain  =  Hain,  Reportorium  Btbliographicum. 

J.  P.  M.  =  Pol  Lard,  Catalogue  of  MSS.  and  Early 
Printed  Books  .  .  .  novo  forming  part  of  the  Library  of 
J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  London ,  1907. 

K  =  Kristeller,  Early  Florentine  Woodcuts. 

P  =  Passavant,  Peintre  Graveur. 

Proctor  =  Proctor,  Index  to  Early  Printed  Books. 

R  =  R  1  vol I,  Les  Missels  imprimes  a  Venise. 

S=Sc  hrei  ber,  Manuel  de  l' Amateur. 


CATALOGUE 


WOODCUTS  IN  BOOKS 

The  First  Steps  in  Book  Illustration 

1.  ILLUMINATED  DECORATIVE  BORDER 

Painted  over  a  woodcut  design  impressed  by  hand  after  the 
book,  was  printed.  In  a  Virgil ,  Venice,  1471  (Hain-Coppinger 
6004).  See  No.  2. 

2.  ILLUMINATED  DECORATIVE  BORDER 

Painted  over  a  woodcut  design  impressed  by  hand  after  the  book 
was  printed.  In  Appian,  De bsllis civilibus,  Venice,  1472  (Proctor 
4044).  Nos.  1  and  2  are  very  beautiful  examples  of  the  use  to 
which  the  illuminators  put  the  wood-block.  From  faffs  such  as 
that  the  same  blocks  appear  in  part  in  both  N os.  1  and  2,  as  well 
as  in  the  Trapesuntius,  Rketorica,  of  about  1470,  in  the  Biblio- 
theque  Nationale  at  Paris,  reproduced  by  Essling  (opp.  p.  1 1 2  of 
Part  I  of  Les  Litres  a  Figures  Ve'nitiens),  it  has  been  inferred  that 
there  were  certain  illuminating  shops  in  Venice  in  which  wood¬ 
blocks  were  used  as  an  easy  means  of  repeating  designs. 

3.  INITIAL 

Impressed  and  colored  by  hand  after  the  book  was  printed.  Evi¬ 
dently  intended  to  be  filled  in  with  color.  In  Nepos,  Vitae  Impera- 
torum,Ve  nice,  1471  (PROCTOR4068).  An  examination  of  ancient 
MSS.  would  probably  reveal  instances  of  such  use  of  wood  or 
metal  blocks  dating  back  to  extremely  early  periods.  Fleury  in 
1861  pointed  out  the  use  of  such  blocks  in  Cistercian  MSS.  of 
the  twelfth  century  preserved  in  the  library  at  Laon. 

4-  DECORATIVE  BORDER  AND  INITIAL 

Impressed  by  hand  after  the  book  was  printed.  Not  colored  and, 
in  view  of  the  black  ground,  evidently  not  intended  to  be.  In 
Suetonius,  Vitae  Caesarum ,  Rome,  1470  (Proctor  3307). 

5.  THREE  BATTERING-RAMS 

Woodcut  illustrations  impressed  by  hand  after  the  book  was 
printed,  in  spaces  left  by  the  printer  for  the  purpose.  It  will  be 


In  ’Torquemadas  Meditat  'wnes,  Rome,  1478 


WOODCUTS 


33 

noticed  that  the  ink  used  in  the  illustrations  is  not  the  same  as 
that  in  the  text,  and  that  the  upper  left-hand  picture  extends 
slightly  over  the  first  line  of  type.  This  and  the  other  eighty-one 
cuts  in  the  De  re  militari  of  Roberto  Valturio,  printed  at  Verona 
in  1472  by  Johannes  ex  Verona  (Proctor  6912),  which  is  here 
shown,  are  the  earliest  North  Italian  woodcuts  to  which  a  posi¬ 
tive  date  can  be  given.  They  are  ascribed  by  tradition  to  Mat- 
teo  Pasti,  the  famous  medalist,  who,  like  Valturio,  was  attached 
to  the  court  of  Sigismondo  Malatesta  of  Rimini,  to  whom  the 
book  was  dedicated.  It  is  one  of  the  very  few  early  Italian  Re¬ 
naissance  woodcut  books  intended  for  bookbuyers  of  taste  and 
discrimination. 


6.  A  WARSHIP 

In  the  edition  of  Valturius,  De  re  militari ,  printed  at  Verona  in 
1483  (Proctor  6921).  Here  the  woodcuts,  copies  of  those  in 
No.  5,  were  printed  with  the  type  of  the  book.  In  Nos.  1  to  6  is 
thus  shown  each  step  from  the  use  of  the  woodcut  simply  as  a 
labor-saving  device  of  the  illuminators  to  its  final  incorporation 
in  the  type  page  by  the  printer  and  publisher. 

7.  THE  FLIGHT  INTO  EGYPT 

A  beautiful  impression  of  one  of  the  thirty-four  blocks  used  in 
Cardinal  Torquemada’s  Meditations  printed  at  Rome  in  1467, 
the  first  Italian  book  illustrated  with  woodcuts,  and  thus  one 
of  the  first  Italian  woodcuts  to  which  a  positive  date  can  be  as¬ 
signed.  They  are  copies  of  mural  paintings  once  in  Santa  Maria 
de  Minerva  at  Rome.  Here  shown  in  Torquemada,  Meditationes , 
Rome,  1478  (Proctor  f  3377). 

8.  ABRAHAM  LEADING  ISAAC  TO  THE 

SACRIFICE,  THE  ROAD  TO  CALVARY 
In  Opera  no-ua  contemplati-va  ( Biblia  Paupcrum)  (E.  206  and  S. 
IV,  p.  106  a).  Published  by  G.  A.  Vavassori  in  Venice.  Possibly 
cut  by  his  brother  Florio  Vavassori.  One  of  the  last  of  the  block- 
books.  Many  of  its  illustrations  are  obviously  inspired  by  Ger¬ 
man  and  Flemish  work  and  a  number  are  nearly  direct  copies 
of  Diirer.  The  book  is  not  dated,  but  cannot  be  earlier  than  1 509, 
and  probably  was  not  made  until  a  number  of  years  later,  as 
G.  A.  Vavassori  appears  to  have  been  working  after  1570. 


34  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 

Naples 

9.  THE  FABLE  OF  THE  WOLF  &  THE  PIG 
In  Tuppo’s  Aesop ,  printed  at  Naples  in  1485  (Hain  353),  which 
is  interesting  as  showing  the  curious  cross  currents  in  early  Ital¬ 
ian  Renaissance  book  illustration.  While  some  of  the  illustra¬ 
tions  are  free  copies  from  those  in  an  Aesop  printed  in  Verona 
in  1479,  and  others  have  a  decidedly  German  look,  the  borders 
by  which  all  are  surrounded  show  strong  Hispano-Moresque 
influences.  Illustrations  of  a  similar  type  are  found  in  books 
printed  prior  to  this  in  Lyons  and  in  Barcelona.  Probably  all 
are  from  the  press  of  some  one  wandering  printer. 

Rome 

10.  THE  VIRGIN  ON  THE  CRESCENT 

Cut  surrounded  by  a  black-ground  border  showing  strong  Nea¬ 
politan  influence.  In  Indulgentiae  Ecclesiarum  Urbis  Romae, 
1496  (Hain  i  i  i  98). 

11.  PILGRIMS  ADORING  THE  VERNICLE 
Cut  surrounded  by  a  black-ground  border  showing  Neapolitan 
influence.  In  Indulgentiae  Ecclesiarum  Urbis  Romae,  March  7, 
1 500  (J.  P.  M.  270). 

12.  “PROBA” 

In  Philippus  de  Barberiis,  Opuscula,  about  1481  or  1482  (Proc- 
tor  3954). 

Milan 

13.  THE  ORGANIST 

In  Gafori,  Theorica  Musice,  Milan,  1492  (Proctor  6055).  This 
cutwas  copied  fromone  in  the  Naples  first  edition  of  1480, which 
is  reputed  to  be  the  first  printed  book  about  music. 

14-  STORIATED  BORDER 

In  Gafori,  Pradlica  Musice,  Milan,  1496  (Proctor  6067).  This 
cut  shows  strong  Venetian  influence. 


WOODCUTS 


35 


Brescia 

15.  DANTE  AND  VIRGIL  AT  THE  EN¬ 
TRANCE  TO  HELL 

In  Dante,  Di-vina  Commedia,  1487  (Proctor  6973).  The  second 
illustrated  Dante,  and  the  first  one  to  contain  woodcuts. 

16.  MARCO  POLO  AT  THE  GATE  OF  A 
CITY 

In  Marco  Polo  da  Xtenesia  de  la  maraveliose  cose  del  Mo?ido, 
December  20,  1500  (J.  P.  M.  479).  This  charming  cut,  if  not 
made  in  Florence,  must  be  a  close  copy  of  Florentine  work. 


Modena 

17.  THE  TRANSLATION  OF  THE  HOUSE 
OF  LORETTO 

In  Pronosticatione ,  April  14,  1492  (Hain  *  10089). 

18.  ADORATION  OF  THE  MAGI 

On  the  title-page  of  Legenda  Sandler um  Trium  Regum,  1490 
(Hain  *  939 9)- 

B  OLOGNA 

19.  THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  AGATHA 
On  the  title-page  of  Festa  di  Sandla  Agata ,  about  1505-10 
(J.  P.  M.  457).  A  copy  of  the  Florentine  cut  reproduced  as 
No.  29  in  K. 

20.  SAINT  VER  DIANA  AT  PRAYER 

In  Leggenda  di  Sandla  Verdia?ia,  about  1520  (J.  P.  M.  458).  A 
copy  of  Florentine  work. 

Florence 

21.  MULTIPLICATION  TABLES 

In  Calandri,  Arithmetica,  January  1, 1491  (K.  77  a).  Reputed  to 
be  the  first  printed  arithmetic. 


4 


Saint  Antonino  Writing 
In  Antonina's  Cur  am  Illius  Habe,  Florence,  1493 


WOODCUTS 


37 


The  Agony  in  the  Garden 
In  Savonarola's  Sermone  della  Oratione ,  Florence ,  1492 


22.  SAINT  ANTONINO  WRITING 

In  Antoninus,  Confessionale :  Curam  Illius  Habe,  May  23,  1493 
(K.  25). 


23.  A  FRIAR  WRITING 

In  Pantiera,  Alchuni  Singular i  Tradlati ,  December  15,  1492 
(K.  320). 


24.  THE  AGONY  IN  THE  GARDEN 

In  Savonarola,  Sermone  della  Oratione ,  October  20,  1 492  (K. 
382  e). 


38  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 

25.  CHRIST  IN  A  MANDORLA 

In  Cavalca,  FruSli  della  Lingua ,  September  4,  1493  (K.  96  b). 
A  free  copy  of  the  celebrated  engraving  by  “Baccio  Baldini” 
in  the  14 77  edition  of  Bettini’s  Monte  SanSio  di  Dio. 

26.  PI  ETA 

In  Savonarola,  Tradato  della  Humilita ,  about  1493  (K.  394  a). 

27.  A  STUDENT  AT  HIS  DESK 

In  Bucolic  he  elegantissimamente  compost  e  da  Bernardo  Pulci , 
April  19,  1494  (Proctor  6167).  This  cut  reproduced  by  K.  as 
his  No.  1 13. 

28.  THE  CONFESSIONAL 

In  Antonino,  Specchio  di  Conscientia,  about  1495  (Proctor 
6297).  This  cut  reproduced  by  K.  as  his  No.  108. 

29.  PIET  A 

In  Savonarola,  Operettadel  Amore  di  Iesu, about  1495  (K.  374  d). 

30.  SAVONAROLA  HANDING  A  BOOK  TO 
AN  ABBESS 

In  Savonarola,  Operetta  sopra  i  died  Commandamenti  di  Dio , 
about  1495  (K.  377  a). 

31.  THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  HOST 

In  Savonarola,  Dradato  del  Sacramento  della  Messa,  about  1495 
(K.  391c). 

32.  A  FRIAR  GREETING  NUNS 

In  Savonarola,  Predicha  e  Reuelationi,  September  5,  1495  (K. 
390  b). 

33.  THE  CRUCIFIXION 

In  Savonarola,  Sopra  i  died  Commandamenti  di  Dio ,  October  24, 
J495  (K-  377  b> 

34.  SAINT  EGIDIO  PRAYING 

In  Egidio,  Capitoli  di  Certa  Dodrina,  about  1496  (K.  132). 


WOODCUTS 


39 


Savonarola  in  the  Pulpit 
In  Savonarola  s  Compendio  di  Revelatione,  Florence ,  1496 

35.  THE  FLAGELLATION 

In  Bonaventura,  Divote  Meditazione  sopra  la  Passione ,  about 
1496  69  b). 

36.  P  I  ETA 

In  Savonarola,  Tradato  della  Humilita,  about  1496  (J.  P.  M. 

427)- 

37.  A  MAN  AND  A  WOMAN  IN  PRAYER 
BEFORE  AN  ALTAR 

In  Savonarola,  'Trad at 0  dell'  Oratione  Mentale,  about  1496  (K.. 
383  b). 

38.  SAVONAROLA  IN  THE  PULPIT 

In  Savonarola,  Compendio  di  Revelatione,  April  23,  1496  (K. 
390  d). 


4°  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


Savonarola  in  his  Cell 

In  Savonarola's  Libro  dellaSimplicita  della  VitaChristiana,  Florence ,  1496 


39.  THE  REDEEMED  WASHING  IN  THE 

BLOOD  OF  THE  CRUCIFIED  * 

In  Benivieni,  Defensione  della  Dodlrina  da  Frate  Hieronymo,  May- 
28,  1496  (K.  52). 

40.  SAVONAROLA  IN  HIS  CELL 

In  Savonarola,  Libro  della  Simphcita  della  Vita  Christiana,  Octo¬ 
ber  31,  1496  (K.  392  b). 

41.  PIETA 

In  Savonarola,  Traciato  della  Humilita,  about  1 500  (K.  394  b). 

42.  A  MAN  AT  PRAYER  BEFORE  AN  ALTAR 

In  Savonarola,  Epistole ,  prior  to  1500  (K.  381  a). 

43-  A  FRIAR  PREACHING  TO  NUNS 

In  Savonarola,  Expositione  del  Pater  Noster,  about  1  500  (K. 
384  c). 


WOODCUTS 


41 


P  I  ETA 

In  Savonarola's  TraBato  della  Humilita,  Florence ,  about  1500 

44.  THE  DYING  MAN 

In  Savonarola,  Predica  del  Arte  del  Ben  Morire,  about  1500 
(K.  375  b). 


Ferrara 

45.  THREE  PORTRAITS 

In  Bergomensis,  De  claris  mulieribus,  1497  (Proctor  5762). 
The  cuts  In  this  book  show  a  curious  mixture  of  Venetian  and 
Florentine  influence. 


42 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


46.  SAINT  JEROME  WRITING  A  LETTER 
WHICH  A  MESSENGER  DELIVERS  TO 
POPE  DAMASUS 

On  the  first  page  of  St.  Jerome’s  Epistole,  1497  (Proctor  5765). 
The  woodcuts  in  this  are  markedly  Venetian  in  character,  of 
the  same  general  type  as  those  in  Nos.  59,  61,  and  62. 


Venice 

47.  BORDER 

On  the  title-page  of  Regiomontanus,  Calendario,  1476  (E.  248). 
Reputed  to  be  the  first  title-page  to  give  title,  date,  place,  and 
printers. 

48.  BORDER 

On  the  title-page  of  Dionysius  Periegetes,  De  situ  orbis,  1477 
(E.  255). 

49.  BORDER 

On  the  title-page ofEuclid,  ElementaGeometriae,  i482(E.  282). 
Reputed  to  be  the  first  printed  geometry. 

50.  VIEW  OF  VENICE 

In  Rolewinck,  Fasciculus  Eemporum ,  1479  (E.  276).  The  first 
print  of  Venice. 

51.  VIEW  OF  VENICE 

In  Bergomensis,  Supplementum  Ckronicarum ,  1492  (E.  345). 
The  third  or  fourth  view  of  Venice.  This  and  No.  50  are  amus¬ 
ing  as  showing  that  in  its  most  important  aspects  Venice  has 
changed  but  little  since  the  last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
This  view  is  attributed  to  Jerome  de  Sanctisjsee  Note  f,  page 
1 6  of  Introduction. 

52.  THE  TRIUMPH  OF  TIME 

In  Petrarch,  Triumphi ,  1488  (E.  76).  See  No.  54. 


V  I  EW  OF  V  EN  ICE 

In  Bergomensis,  Supplement  urn  Chronic  arum,  Venice,  1 4.92 


WOODCUTS 


45 


53.  THE  TRIUMPH  OF  TIME 

In  Petrarch,  Triumphi,  April  22,  1490  (E.  77).  See  No.  54. 

54.  THE  TRIUMPH  OF  TIME 

In  Petrarch,  T riumphi,  February  1 5,  1  508  (E.  85).  The  edition 
of  1488  (No.  52)  is  the  first  illustrated  Petrarch;  and  although 
in  this  copy  the  illustrations  are  so  heavily  painted  over  that  the 
woodcut  lines  can  only  with  great  difficulty  be  made  out,  it 
is  shown  because  it  is  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  illustrations. 
Its  designs  differ  materially  from  those  in  the  second  edition 
(No.  53),  which  are  copies  of  the  famous  set  of  broad-manner 
Florentine  copper  engravings.  The  cuts  in  the  edition  of  1493 
(E.  79),  the  illustrations  in  which  were  reprinted  in  No.  54, 
were  based  on  those  of  No.  53.  These  three  sets  of  cuts,  per¬ 
haps  the  most  celebrated  of  all  the  many  Petrarch  illustrations, 
come  somewhere  midway  in  the  history  of  Petrarch  illustra¬ 
tion,  a  history  doubtless  exceeded  in  length  and  interest  only  by 
that  of  Bible  illustration. 

55.  MAP  OF  CYPRUS 

In  Zamberto,  Isolario,  about  1485  (E.  1316). 

56.  THE  FLAGELLATION 

In  Bonaventure,  Meditazione  sopra  la  Passione,  April  26,  1490 
(E.  406).  The  first  edition  of  this  book  with  these  illustrations 
appeared  in  February,  1489.  “The  fashion  of  illustrating  books 
with  a  great  number  of  woodcuts,  frequently  of  extremely  small 
dimensions, appears  to  have  originated  in  Venice; .  .  .  Vignette 
illustration  was  adopted  in  Germany  from  the  pra&ise  of  the 
Venetians ;  and  was  cultivated  with  success  by  the  younger 
Holbein,  by  Hans  Sebald  Beham,  and  by  Albrecht  Altdorfer. 
At  a  later  date  it  was  completely  monopolized  in  Lyons,  by 
Bernard  Salomon  and  his  imitators.  The  Venetian  artists  were 
the  forerunners,  and  perhaps  even  the  direct  models,  of  the 
‘little  masters'  of  Germany  and  France.  The  series  of  those 
vignette  illustrations  was  opened  by  a  small  book,  published 
in  1489,  and  entitled  Devote  Meditazione  sopra  la  Passione  del 
N.  S."  (Lippmann,  History  of  Wood-Engraving  in  Italy,  p.  82.) 


46  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 

57.  “SOPHONIA,”  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  JO¬ 
SEPH  AND  MARY,  SAINT  PETER  IN 
PRISON,  “OSEE,”  “RE  SALAMUM,”  THE 
DISCIPLES 

In  Bible,  May  8,  1498  (E.  138).  The  illustrations  in  this  Bible; 
of  which  six  loose  pages  are  show  n,  first  appeared  in  the  cele¬ 
brated  vernacular  “Mallermi”  Bible  of  Oftober  15,  1490  (E. 
133),  which  is  artistically  as  important  as  it  is  rare,  apparently 
but  five  or  six  copies  being  known.  A  number  of  them  are  based 
upon  woodcuts  contained  in  the  Cologne  Bible  of  1490,  but  the 
greater  number,  which  are  also  the  best,  seem  to  be  new  com¬ 
positions.  All  are  in  the  fine  outline  manner  of  the  cuts  in  No. 
56,  and  some  contain  signatures,  the  earliest  to  appear  in  any 
Venetian  book,  but  these  seem  to  be  shop  labels  rather  than 
signatures  of  artists.  More  than  one  hand  is  discernible  in  the 
cuts,  some  of  which,  such  as  that  of  The  Marriage  of  Joseph 
and  Mary,  here  shown,  may  possibly  be  by  Benedetto  Bordone. 

58.  THE  FABLE  OF  THE  TWO  CROWS 

In  Aesop,  December  20,  1508  (E.  365).  The  woodcuts  in  this 
book  were  first  used  in  the  edition  of  January  31,  1491  (E. 
36°). 

59.  FIRST  PAGE 

In  Boccaccio,  Decamerone,  June  20,  1492  (E.  640). 

60.  A  CAVALRY  BATTLE 

In  Livy,  Deche,  April  16,  1 5 1 1  (E.  38).  This  and  many  of  the 
other  illustrations  first  appeared  in  the  edition  of  February  1 1, 
J49 3  (E-  33> 

61.  VORAGINE  AT  HIS  DESK  (“SILEN- 
TIUM”) 

In  Voragine,  Legendario  de  Sandli,  December  5,  1499  (E.  680). 
Most  of  these  illustrations  first  appeared  in  the  1492  and  1494 
editions  of  the  Golden  Legend.  The  border  shown  was  also  used 
in  various  editions  of  other  books,  among  them  the  Petrarch, 
No.  54. 


“  O  S  E  E  ” 

In  the  Mailer  mi  Bible  of  1490,  Venice 


The  Fable  of  the  Dog  and  the  Stork 
In  Aesop's  Fables,  Venice,  1508 


48  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 

62.  THE  DEC  I  A  N  PERSECUTION 

In  Vita  di  sandli  Padri,  September  3,  1 509  (E.  575).  Illustrated 
with  impressions  of  the  wood-blocks  from  the  famous  edition 
of  1491  (E.  568),  w'hich  with  the  cuts  in  Nos.  57-64  are  per¬ 
haps  the  best  of  the  early  Venetian  wrork. 

63.  THE  DISSECTION 

In  Ketham,  Fasciculo  de  Medicina,  February  5,  1493  (E.  586). 
This  woodcut  is  colored  red,  black, yellow,  and  greenwith  sten¬ 
cils.  Possibly  this  and  No.  65  were  the  only  Italian  incunabula 
issued  in  colors.  See  Note  *,  page  1 1  of  Introduction. 

64.  THE  DOCTORS 

In  Ketham, Fasciculus  Medicinae,  March  28, 1 500  (E.  588). The 
same  cuts  as  those  in  No.  66,  but  uncolored.  They  are  possibly 
by  the  Master  of  the  Hypnerotomachia.  See  Nos.  73  and  74. 

65.  ASTRONOMICAL  DIAGRAM  ILLUS¬ 
TRATING  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LU¬ 
NAR  ECLIPSES 

In  Sacrobosco,  Sphaera  Mundi ,  1485  (E.  259).  The  diagrams 
in  this  book  are  reputed  to  be  the  earliest  recorded  examples 
of  pictures  printed  in  color.  See  Introduction,  page  22. 

66.  DANTE  AND  VIRGIL 

In  Dante,  Di-uina  Commedia,  November  29,  1493  (E.  533). 
These  cuts  first  appeared  in  the  edition  of  March,  1491  (E. 
531).  The  conventions  of  representation  permitted  the  artist  to 
depiCt  Dante  in  three  separate  places  in  one  picture. 


67.  SAINT  LORENZO  GIUSTINIANO  PRE¬ 
CEDED  BY  A  CRUCIFER 

In  Giustiniano,  Della  Vita  Monastica,  OCtober  20,  1494  (E. 
757).  This  cut  is  a  loose  copy  from  a  tempera  panel  painted  by 
Gentile  Bellini  in  1466,  now  in  the  Accademia  at  Venice. 

68.  A  MONK  PRAYING 

In  Monte  de  la  Oratione,  about  1493  or  1494  (E.  728). 


The  Sick  Man 

In  Ket ham's  Fasciculo  de  Medicina ,  Venice ,  1493 


In  Columna,  H ypnerotom achia  Poliphili 
Venice,  Aldus,  1499 


WOODCUTS 


51 


69.  FRONTISPIECE  AND  BORDER 

In  Regiomontanus,  Epitoma  in  Almagestum,  August  31,  1496 
(E.  895).  Possibly  by  the  Master  of  the  Hypnerotomachia.  See 
Nos.  73  and  74. 

70.  THE  ANNUNCIATION 

In  Aldus,  Greek  Book  of  Hours,  1497  (E.  463). 

71.  PLATYNA  WRITING  THE  LIVES  OF 
THE  POPES 

Title-page  of  Platyna,  Hystoria  de  Vitis  pontificum ,  1504  (E. 
1429). 

72.  SAINT  ANTHONY 

The  printer’s  mark  of  Philippo  Pincio,  used  in  the  Livy  of  Sep¬ 
tember  27,  1 5 1 1  (E.  39). 

73.  POLIPHILE  EMBRACING  POLIA,  AND 
POLIPHILE  AND  POLIA  DRIVEN  FROM 
THE  TEMPLE  OF  DIANA 

In  Columna,  Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili,  1499  (E.  1198).  See 
Nos.  64  and  69. 

74.  THE  HEL I  AD  ES  AND  THE  VINTAGE 
In  Columna,  Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili,  1499  (E.  1198).  See 
Introduftion,  pages  17  and  18. 

75.  THE  CANON  PICTURE 

In  Missale  Vallisumbrosae,  December  4,  1503  (R.  245). 

76.  PORTRAIT  OF  ARIOSTO  (BY  FRAN¬ 
CESCO  DE  NANTO) 

In  Ariosto,  Orlando  Furioso,  Ferrara,  1532. 

77.  AN  EQUESTRIAN  BATTLE 
In  Brusantino,  Angelica  Inamorata,  1553. 


The  Fable  of  the  Oak  and  the  Reed 
In  V erdizotti’s  Cento  Favole  Morali ,  Venice ,  1577 


WOODCUTS 


53 


78.  THE  CRUCIFIXION 

In  Missae  episcopates  pro  sacris  ordinibus  confer endis,  June,  1563. 

79.  THE  OAK  AND  THE  REED  (BY  GIO¬ 
VANNI  MARIA  VERDIZOTTI) 

In  Verdizotti,  Cento  Fa-uole  Morali ,  1577. 

80.  “CONTADINA”  (BY  CESARE  VECELLIO) 
In  Vecellio,  Habiti  antic  he  e  moderni,  1590. 


An  Equestrian  Battle 
In  Brusantino,  Angelica  Inamorata ,  1553 


The  Psalms 

In  the  Mallermi  Bible  of  1490,  Venice 


PART  I  I 


WOODCUTS  NOT  IN  BOOKS 


WOODCUTS  NOT  IN  BOOKS 


The  folio-wing  prints  are  listed  alphabetically  under  artists 
according  to  their  traditional  attributions ,  - which ,  however 
doubtful  in  many  cases,  are  those  by  which  they  are  known 

Anonymous 


85.  CHARLES  V 

After  Titian.  (B.  XII.  146.  1  ?)  Black  and  white,  containing 
much  white  line  work.  The  late  Henry  Wolf,  who  had  ex¬ 
amined  this  impression  with  care,  said  that  it  w'as  graver  work 
on  metal. 

154.  VENUS  LAMENTING  THE  DEATH  OF 
ADONIS 

After  Luca  Cambiasio.  The  key  block  only.  (P.  VI.  238.  74  a.) 

133.  THE  REPOSE  IN  EGYPT 
After  Baroccio.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  36.  11.) 

87.  FAITH 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  128.  1.) 

83.  PRUDENCE 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  129.  6.) 

134.  TEMPERANCE 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks f  B.  XII.  129.  5.) 

119.  THE  VIRGIN  MARY 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  56.  12.) 

m.  JASON 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  120.  19) 

1.2.  THE  SACRIFICE 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  152.  21.) 


58 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


159.  THE  FATHERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 
After  Beccafumi.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  84.  35.) 

no.  THE  VIRGIN  AND  SAINTS 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  64.  24 — II.) 


142.  THE  MADONNA  OF  LORETTO 

A  sixteenth-century  devotional  image  in  black  and  white. 
Possibly  undescribed. 


Andrea  Andreani 

Born  at  Mantua  about  1  540  ;  died  1 62  3  or  1 626.  His  signature  appears 
upon  many  «< woodcuts  not  made  by  him ,  as  he  bought  and  republished 
blocks  made  by  other  men.  A  Mantuan  painter  named  Malpizzi  had 
much  to  do  with  the  set  of  Triumphs,  apparently  furnishing  the  draw¬ 
ings  after  Mantegna's  paintings  from  which  they  were  cut 

97.  XYLOGRAPHIC  TITLE-PAGE  TO  THE 

TRIUMPH  OF  CAESAR 
After  Mantegna.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  p.  103.) 

95.  THE  ELEPHANTS 

After  Mantegna.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  102.  11.  5.) 

105.  THE  STANDARD  BEARERS 
After  Mantegna.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  102.  xi.  8.) 

106.  THE  TROPHIES 

After  Mantegna.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  102.  11.  6.) 

96.  THE  VASE  BEARERS 

After  Mantegna.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  102.  11.  4.) 

104.  THE  CAPTIVES 

After  Mantegna.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  102.  11.  7.) 

153.  CIRCE 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  111.  6.) 


WOODCUTS 


59 


107.  NYMPHS  AT  THE  BATH 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  122.  22  —  I.) 

82.  MUTIUS  SCAEVOLA 

After  Baldassare  Peruzzi.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  98.  7.) 

93.  SAINT  FRANCIS  OF  ASSISI 
After  Casolani.  4  blocks.  (B.  XII.  81.  30.) 

108.  A  WOMAN  MEDITATING 
After  Casolani.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  148.  14.) 

135.  THE  PRESENTATION  IN  THE  TEMPLE 
After  Salviati.  4  blocks.  (B.  XII.  31.  6  —  I.) 

94.  the  adoration  of  the  magi 

After  Luini.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  30.  4.) 

Nicolo  Boldrini 

Seemingly  the  only  information  available  about  this  engraver  is  that 
contained  in  his  vsork.  The  Venus  and  Love  here  shown  is  dated  1566, 
in  which  year  Titian  received  from  the  Venetian  government  a  mo¬ 
nopoly  for  the  sale  of  prints  after  his  designs 

144.  A  WOMAN  MILKING  A  COW 
After  Titian.  (P.  VI.  242.  96.) 

149.  THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE  OF  SAINT 

CATHERI NE 

After  Titian.  (P.  VI.  235.  61.) 

1 3 1.  MILO  OF  CROTON 
After  Titian.  (P.  VI.  237.  70.) 

139.  VENUS  AND  LOVE 
After  Titian.  (B.  XII.  126.  29.) 


6o 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


128.  THE  APE  LAOCOON 

After  Titian.  (P.  VI.  243.  97.)  According  to  tradition  this  is 
a  caricature  by  Titian  of  the  famous  Laocoon  group  discov¬ 
ered  in  Rome  in  1 506.  Apparently  it  is  the  second  oldest  print 
of  the  Laocoon,  having  been  preceded  only  by  the  engraving 
of  Marco  Dente. 

136.  SAINT  FRANCIS  RECEIVING  THE 

STI  GMATA 

After  Titian.  (P.  VI.  235.  59.) 

152.  SAMSON  BETRAYED  BY  DELILAH 
After  Titian.  (P.  VI.  223.  5.) 


Bartolomeo  Coriolano 
Worked  at  Bologna,  1630-47 


148.  A  SIBYL 

After  Guido  Reni.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  88.  4.) 

132.  A  SIBYL 

After  Guido  Reni.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  88.  5.) 

X14.  A  SIBYL 

After  Guido  Reni.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  88.  3.) 

118.  A  SIBYL 

After  Guido  Reni.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  87.  2.) 

1 51.  FORTUNE 

After  Guido  Reni.  The  key  block  only.  (P.  VI.  239.  ji.)  {Doubt¬ 

ful.) 

140.  THE  GIANTS 

After  Guido  Reni.  3  blocks  &  4  sheets.  (B.  XII.  1 1 3.  11.) 
155.  A  GIANT 

After  Guido  Reni.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  116.  13.) 


WOODCUTS 


61 


129.  SAINT  JEROME 

After  Guido  Reni.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  83.  33  —  II.) 

157.  AN  ALLEGORY 

After  Domenico  Briccio.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  138.  17.) 

150.  PEACE  AND  ABUNDANCE 

After  Guido  Reni.  2  blocks. { B.  XII.  131.  10  —  I.) 

“F  L  M” 

Venetian ,  XVI  century 

123.  THE  SAVIOUR 

Probably  cut  from  some  devotional  book. 

“N  D  B” 

84.  THE  MASSACRE  OF  THE  INNOCENTS 
After  Raphael.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  33.  7.) 


Giuseppe  Scolari 

A  draughtsman  who  • worked  in  Venice  toward  the  end  of  the  XVI 
century,  and  who,  unlike  many  of  the  woodcut  designers,  seems  to  have 
drawn  upon  the  block.  Did  he  cut  his  own  designs  ? 

141.  SAINT  JEROME  IN  THE  DESERT 

(Andresen,  Handbuch,  I.  489.  6.) 


138.  THE  ENTOMBMENT 

(P.  VI.  230.  40-  ?)  Except  that  it  is  in  reverse,  this  corre¬ 
sponds  exactly  to  the  description  given  by  Passavant,  loc.  cit. 


Antonio  da  Trento 

A  pupil  of  Parmigiano,  who  did  much  work  after  that  master's  draw¬ 
ings.  He  is  reported  to  have  decamped  one  morning  while  Parmigiano 
was  still  abed,  taking  with  him  all  the  prints,  drawings ,  and  blocks 


62 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


he  could  carry.  Vasari  {Life  of  Parmigiano)  adds  that  “ he  must  have 
taken  himself  fairly  to  the  devil ,  seeing  that  no  news  voas  ever  heard 
of  him  from  that  time  forward" 

145.  AUGUSTUS  AND  THE  TIBURTINE 
SIBYL 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  90.  7.) 

130.  SAINT  CECILIA 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  85.  37.) 

109.  THE  LUTE  PLAYER 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  143.  3.) 

92.  SAINT  JOHN  BAPTIST 

After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  73.  17.) 

115.  THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  SAINTS  PETER 
AND  PAUL 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  79.  28  —  I.) 

90.  HONORS  RENDERED  TO  PSYCHE 

After  Salviati.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  125.  26  —  I.)  Passavant  (VI, 
p.  222)  suggests  that  this  print  is  by  Nicolo  Vicentino. 

146.  SEATED  MAN  SEEN  FROM  BEHIND 
After  Parmigiano.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  148.  13.) 


Ugo  da  Carpi 

The  earliest  and  perhaps  the  most  important  of  Italian  engravers  in 
chiaroscuro.  The  date  of  his  birth  is  unknown.  He  is  said  to  have  died 
July  20,  1523.  Working  in  Venice  as  early  as  1509,  he  prepared  the 
blocks  for  a  number  of  book  illustrations  in  black  and  vshite,  several  of 
vohich  are  copies  of  French  work.  In  1516  he  received  from  the  V ene- 
tian  government  a  patent  for  his  invention  of  chiaroscuro  printing,  but 
it  seems  probable  that  he  voas  merely  turning  to  account  his  knovoledge 
of  German  technical  methods  and  voas  not  an  independent  inventor. 
The  later  years  of  his  life  voere  spent  at  Rome 


WOODCUTS  63 

156.  THE  VIRGIN,  SAINT  SEBASTIAN,  & 
A  BISHOP 

After  Barocei.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  66.  26  —  I.)  ( Doubtful .) 

99.  A  SIBYL 

After  Raphael.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  89.  6.)  According  to  Vasari 
the  first  chiaroscuro  by  Ugo. 

147.  SAINTS  PETER  AND  JOHN 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  77.  26  —  II.) 

89.  SAINT  PETER  PREACHING 

After  Polidore  Caravaggio.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  77.  25.) 

160.  PAN 

After  Parmigiano.  4  blocks.  (B.  XII.  123.  24.  1  —  II.) 

158.  CHRIST  AT  THE  TABLE  OF  SIMON 

THE  PHARISEE 

After  Raphael.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  40.  17.) 

81.  THE  DEATH  OF  ANANIAS 

After  Raphael.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  46.  27  —  II.)  The  first  state 
bears  the  date  1518,  the  earliest  date  on  any  Italian  chiaro¬ 
scuro  described  by  either  Bartsch  or  Passavant. 

137.  THE  MIRACULOUS  DRAUGHT  OF 
FISHES 

After  Raphael.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  37.  13  —  II.) 

143.  Jacob’s  ladder 

After  Raphael.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  25.  5.)  Passavant (VI,  p.  220) 
suggests  Nicold  Vicentino  as  the  engraver  of  this  print. 

88.  ENVY  DRIVEN  FROM  THE  TEMPLE 
OF  THE  MUSES 

After  Baldassare  Peruzzi.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  133.  12  —  I.) 


64 


ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE 


86.  DAVID  AND  GOLIATH 

After  Raphael.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  26.  8 — II.) 

116.  SATURN 

After  Parmigiano.  4  blocks.  (B.  XII.  125.  27  —  II.) 


100.  DIOGENES 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  ( B.  XII.  100.  10.) 

91.  RAPHAEL  AND  HIS  MISTRESS 

After  Raphael.  4  blocks.  (B.  XII.  141. 3.)  An  anonymous  print 
of  the  same  subjeft  as  Ugo’s  B.  XII.  141.  2. 


Nicolo  Vicentino 

A  pupil  of  Parmigiano  who  worked  in  the  first  half  of  the  XVI  cen¬ 
tury.  There  seem  to  be  no  authentic  records  concerning  him 

113.  THE  VIRGIN  SURROUNDED  BY 
SAINTS 

After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  64.  23.) 

102.  THE  NEMEAN  LION 

After  Raphael.  2  blocks.  (B.  XII.  119.17 — II.)  Passavant 
(VI,  p.*ai)  says  that  this  is  after  Giulio  Romano. 

103.  AJAX  AND  AGAMEMNON 
After  Caravaggio.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  99.  9  —  II.) 

124.  CHRIST  HEALING  THE  LEPERS 
After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  39.  15  —  I.) 

117.  THE  ADORATION  OF  THE  MAGI 
After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  30.  3.) 

98.  THE  ESCAPE  OF  CLELIA 
After  Maturino.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  96.  5  —  I.) 


WOODCUTS 


65 


1 0 1  ■  THE  ADORATION  OF  THE  MAGI 
After  Parmigiano.  3  blocks.  (B.  XII.  29.  2.) 

Giovanni  Andrea  Vavassori 

One  of  the  most  prolific  Venetian  ^woodcutters.  His  mark  is  found  in 

books  from  1522  to  1572.  See  also  No.  8 

125.  HERCULES  AND  ANTAEUS 

120.  HERCULES  AND  CERBERUS 

127.  HERCULES  AND  CACUS 

122.  H  IPPODAMI  A 

126.  HERCULES  AND  THE  SONS  OF  PRO¬ 
TEUS 

ui.  THE  DEATH  OF  HERCULES 

See  Hirth  and  Muther,  Meisterholzschnitte  aus  <vier  Jahrhun- 
derten,  Munich,  1893,  p.  xxxviii,  No.  161. These  six  cuts  show 
the  mingling  of  influences  in  sixteenth-century  Venetian 
woodcuts.  The  technique  is  Venetian,  some  of  the  figures  are 
based  on  Mantuan  or  Florentine  work,  while  there  are  many 
traces  of  German  influence.  The  full  set  of  twelve  Labors  is 
described  at  length  by  Bernard  in  his  Geoffroy  Tory,  as  works 
of  that  artist,  and  praised  as  among  the  masterpieces  of  the 
French  Renaissance.  These  impressions,  like  those  seen  by 
Bernard,  bear  the  signature  used  by  Tory  from  1524  to  1  526, 
but  as  copies  at  Berlin  and  Venice  bear  the  address  “Opera  di 
Giovanni  Andrea  Vavassori  dettoGuadagnino,”  it  is  probable 
that  Tory  purchased  the  blocks  and,  after  inserting  his  mark, 
republished  them. 


Of  this  Catalogue  one  thousand 
BEEN  PRINTED  BY  D.  B.  UPDIKE  AT 

mount  Press,  Boston,  in  November, 


copies  HAVE 
THE  MERRY- 
1917 


GETTY  CENTER  LIBRARY 


